It's amazing, how things sometimes turn out.

People say you don't get to choose your parents, and boy if that's not true. They often forget to say how unlucky some of us get to be.

I don't remember my parents, why would I? For as long as anyone has known about me, I've been away from the woman that gave me birth, and that goes double for the other half. Rumors had it they had just been visiting Mandalore when the Clone Wars finally claimed Duchess Satine's life, the first of many Mandalorians to sink into that howling darkness, never to come back. They had been lucky, or so they say, and managed to ride off the worst of the fighting. Then mother had gone into labor, and that was what many would count as one of my many failures as a human being. They couldn't get out, when the Republic turned desperate it suddenly ceased to worry about collateral damage. The buildings that had been designated as shelters had been under constant assault, and the Generals, in their infinite dumbassery, had decided that a few dead civilians were 'acceptable losses'. I nearly became one of those 'acceptable losses', the clones that dug me out where dumbfounded at the 5-day-old baby who had survived tons of durasteel, beskar, and concrete coming down on him. They had chalked it up to 'Mandalorian thoughness' and, after cleaning me up and making sure I wasn't going to die in the next couple of days, they turned me over to whatever authority was left on the planet.

Then the Republic turned into the Empire. The fighting was over practically by the next day, and Mandalore accepted the new rule if it meant a stop to the bloodshed. In the confusion, no one bothered to find out if one of the many orphans the war had caused belonged where he was. In retrospective, perhaps they knew I didn't.

Vriom and Zathe Hynehl wanted to pretend they could overlook such a fact. Vriom was a blacksmith of sorts, schooled in the ancient art of beskar forging, and Zathe tried to cultivate the image of a housewive, all the while being a instructor on the ancient arts of Mandalorian hand-to-hand combat. The couple took me in, and I really can't complain about them not trying, because I can remember a time where they would seem to genuinely love this strange kid. They raised him on the old Mandalorian ways -secretly, of course, the Empire wouldn't be thrilled about possible insurgency brewing within its borders (Mandalorian recruitment demanded unconditional allegiance to the Empire, in clear defiance of the Mandalorian way, but that was a mere nuisance)-, ingrained on him the story of his adopted lineage, and taught him everything they thought he needed to know. They had to, he wasn't learning anything at school, and not for a lack of trying, but because everyone seemed to have a bone to pick with him.

"Who do you think you are, showing your impure face in this place?!" was an accusation I got every first day of class anywhere I went. Despite not having any friends to speak of, and barely speaking to anyone that was not V or Z, the local bullies seemed to know me no matter what, and made sure to not only make their distaste of me clear, but also to spread it and turn every kid in the building against me. So, I would ignore the insults, and return the punches. I became quite good at it, while V and Z steadily became disappointed in their adopted child.

In 6 years of forced school attendance, I made two friends only. The first one I met after a particularly nasty session of 'you are not the boss of me', which ended up with me breaking the noses of three attackers at the expense of a nasty gash across my forehead. After going to the infirmary for a bacta treatment to stop the bleeding, I was sent to the Principal's office, still somewhat bloodied, and made to sit outside while waiting for her to come in and give me the same speech she always did about 'not escalating situations' and 'learning to cope with outside hatred', as if I was able to understand that back then. Sitting in silence and thinking about what kind of an earful I would get from Zathe for the latest beat up I had handed over -and received-, I had barely processed the idea that there was someone else talking to me. And for once, it was a person my age, not to insult or demean me, but rather actually looking concerned.

"Are you alright?" I finally understood, from a girl slightly smaller in height than me, who was looking pretty interested in helping me clean off the blood I still had in some places. Under my confused look, she took a napkin from a nearby caf station and dampened it with fresh water from the tap.

"It's ok, I've got it, thanks" I said as lightly as I could, taking the napkin before she rubbed off the blood herself. Maybe she was only being nice?

"You don't look very well, uhm…" she casually added, sitting beside me and marking the spots I could not possibly see without a mirror.

"Dax. My uhm… name is Dax Hynehl" I had hesitated to say despite her leaving the door open for an answer.

"Nice to meet you. I'm Maya Fyyak" she said, smiling to me in a friendly way that only my parents did.

"Nice to meet you too. Thanks for the help"

"What happened to you?"

"I, uh, I had a fight…"

"Ah, so it was you who broke those bullies' noses, right?" she asked, obviously in on the local gossip.

"It was self-defense…" I went quickly into defense mode, used to having to try and explain myself -not that it ever mattered-.

"I know. They are… not nice people. I've seen them pushing you around and messing with you. I always wonder why" she mused, finally able to take the napkin off my hands and doing a better work of cleaning the blood off than I was. 'Awkward' and 'uncomfortable' are, to this date, very light words to describe what I was feeling then, and 'alien' is definitely the word for the feeling I was getting out of the whole situation. Back then I chalked it up to the blood loss.

"They just… don't like me. Nobody does, anyways" I glumly answered, doing my best to stay still and let her finish already.

"Is there any reason for that? People don't dislike you just because" she tried to rationalize, looking doubtfully at me.

"I don't mess with people, I don't speak to them, I don't even look at them. Yet there's not a single day I don't get beaten, insulted, mocked, teased, or otherwise targeted. By now, I don't even think my parents like me either" then I curled into myself and looked away. No one had ever seen me cry, I wouldn't give them the satisfaction of seeing me hurt, but when reality had finally sunk in, I just couldn't hold it in much longer. I had tried to keep it silent, but she was right by my side in that moment and she could hear the one sob that I had ever made in public.

"Don't say that, your parents will always love you. I'm sorry you are having a bad time with others, I believe you when you say it's not your fault, you don't look like the type. If it's ok to you, maybe I could be your friend?" she asked hopefully, offering a smile that's a painful memory when I think back on it.

"Why would you want that?" I asked cautiously, hoping not to offend her.

"Everyone needs friends. You could use one, and you seem like an interesting person to meet. You don't have to be alone" by now she had put a hand on my shoulder, and I have to admit non-violent contact from someone that wasn't family was a welcome change.

"Ok" was all I could answer, making her smile go wider. In that moment, someone called her name and she had to go.

"Yikes, I have to go. Will I see you tomorrow?" she asked hopefully, standing from her sitting position, for which she got a nod as an answer from me, "Great. Do me a favor and chin up, alright?"

"I'll try. Thank you"

The rest of the day felt like I was in auto-pilot. I don't remember if I was in the principal's office that day, and back home I didn't get much of a punishment, so I went to bed and mulled everything over before losing consciousness to sleep.

She made good on her word, though, and that was a first for me. My usual lonely lunch time was instead spent answering a barrage of questions she had about my miserable life, while she only allowed me to make a handful to her. For 30 minutes of that day, I was genuinely happy, for a change. And that was the start of it.

While she was with her own friends I wouldn't bother, the last thing I wanted is to turn her into an outcast by association. Any time someone wanted to talk to her, I would leave, despite her insisting that I didn't have to do such a thing, that it was demeaning and she felt hurt. I couldn't make her see sense, so instead I risked hurting her every time I did so. My second friend came in from her, of course. Her brother Gak wasn't a fan of her friends, but decided to tag along with a fellow outcast to see if he could connect better. And we did. He was the closest I had to a brother, and I will never regret meeting him. Sadly, things were about to go worse, because Force knows that being happy wasn't something I was entitled to.

I met the Fyyak siblings (and their parents, who at the time seemed nice people, in the sense they didn't take a dislike to me) when I was 12-years-old, and then time seemed to fly. We grew up quickly, Mandalorian kids famous already for being mature beyond their years, and of course she grew up to be a physically attractive young girl. Gak and I also grew up, though not even that put a dent on my "most hated boy in the city" reputation. While Gak grew out of his outcast phase, I had no choice, and we found ourselves sharing less and less time together. No hard feelings, we still felt a strong 'bro' connection. Maya, on the other hand, became popular, despite everyone knowing she was the only female friend of the planet's biggest loser, and of course she had the big boys' attention. She fell for a guy who couldn't hate me any more even if they tried.

The bastard was from a rich, powerful, and influential family, traders with connections to the nastiest people in the Empire. I should have seen it coming, but I didn't want to think that Maya, of all people, would be the one to do so.

People say they remember important events in their life. Their first academic achievement, their first kiss, their wedding day… I wouldn't know any of those.

I do remember the day that the Mandalorian police and Imperial Security came for me. My parents tried to stall, but they just pushed past them, plowed me to the floor, and slapped the cuffs in me. 14-years-old and I was being dragged against my will by men at least twice my size. 24 hours of rotting in a prison cell later, they finally told me why I was there. Sexual assault. Are you kidding me? To whom? I didn't know a single woman my age that I could be remotely tied to such a heinous crime, it was ridiculous. Except for one. That was Maya's handwriting and signature on the report, alright. The other one, I assumed, was from her significant other. She had made a choice, and she chose him over me. Vriom and Zathe were just as shocked, and they spent a whole day trying to get me to confess, even though I insisted that I hadn't, that I had been at home and they could attest to that. They were having none of it.

They mutually decided that the boy they had raised since he was nothing but a baby, that they had nurtured and raised into family values, and that endured the worst that Mandalore's society could throw at him, was lying, and that he was a disgrace to their family lineage. That was the last time I saw them, and the last day 'Hynehl' was my legal surname. The Empire had seen to that, seizing the opportunity to be the good guys in the eyes of the people. By the third day it was only Gak visiting me, behind his family's back. He had tried to talk sense into Maya, drop the charge against me and confess to the lie, but she wouldn't bulge. I still don't understand how you can lie about something so serious, and point the finger at someone to whom you had claimed to be a good friend of.

"Gak" I called to him a week after being detained, "I need a favor from you".

"Yeah, of course" he was sitting across from me, outside the force field.

"Don't come back tomorrow"

"What?! Are you serious?! Don't joke with this kind of thing, Dax!" he was personally insulted by what I had asked, but he didn't get it, so I had to explain.

"The guards have been talking, they have been telling people that you are still coming to visit. When your parents find out… when everyone else finds out… I can't do that to you. Please? For me?"

I could tell he was stunned. His closest friend was asking him to go away, and never come back. He felt like he was failing me, but in all honesty, he had gone above and beyond. He would have to stay long after I was gone. I had made myself no illusions about getting out of this one.

He simply nodded and looked away, then to me, so I could see the tears in his eyes. He left without saying anything else, and then I was truly alone. My 15th birthday was due for 20 days later, and I had already lost my life as I knew it. I was truly alone now, and I was only able to sit in my empty cell with my back turned against the entryway. When they came for me again, to stick me in an Imperial shuttle and off the planet, I didn't even flinch. I just hoped that they would end it quickly.

No such luck.

By the time I felt solid ground again, I had been kicked off the shuttle's ramp and left for dead, in a barren wasteland which I did not recognize by any stretch of the imagination, and with no water or nourishment to speak of. Yes, I should have died then and there, under the blistering sun of Geonosis, but the Force has a wicked sense of humor. After a few hours of wandering around aimlessly, I remember dropping to my knees and giving up, surrendering to a fate that seemed certain, only to come to again lying on a cot that seemed unusually comfortable.

"Don't try to stand up, you're too weak to do anything, it's amazing you are still breathing" a deep voice commanded me, and I instinctively tried to recoil away from it. He wasn't wrong, all the muscles in my body felt like jelly at the time, so I barely moved.

"Drink", as he poured the best sip of water I had in my life until then on my mouth. After a few minutes, I was capable to do so on my own, and could now see the abrasions in my wrists where my hands had been tied for days. I also got a good look at my 'savior'. I had never seen a Duro up close, only in holostills, and it was a thoroughly… weird, experience. I figured them for pilots, rarely for bounty hunters.

"This is you, isn't it?" he inquired with interest, turning the holographic bulletin with my face on it so I could see it. I groaned and tried to look anywhere else. Even in a barren wasteland like that I couldn't escape that bullshit, "did you do it, what they say you did?"

"No!"

He sized me for a moment, then huffed smugly, "alright then"

It took a bounty hunter full 5 seconds to believe what days of swearing on the Mandalorian code would not convince my former parents. Yes, the galaxy is kriffed up like that.

"Who are you?" with coarse voice, having lived off the minimum of food and fluids a human can possibly survive from.

"Introductions? You think you'll stick around?" he was having fun, the smug bastard, but I wasn't about to be outdone by blue-skinned fierfek.

"If that wasn't the case, why bother saving my sorry ass?" he laughed at my jab and finally conceded.

"I'm Jer Karloks, and I suppose you'd be Dax Hynehl…"

"Just Dax. Legally, I have no family name"

"Wow, they really did their best to get rid of you, didn't they?"

Short of killing me, yes, they'd done the next best thing: erase me from existence and deny me any kind of legacy. Just killing me would have left the door open for someone to question the validity of what they did. Erasing me from public memory had effectively granted them absolute victory.

"Yes. I don't think they ever liked me, anyway" I half-joked then, and still do.

"Spare me the sob story. What should I do with you? I'm guessing the Empire would pay handsomely for the prisoner they've failed to indirectly kill"

"Probably, but..." and I really think I had no choice at the moment, "will you pass up the opportunity to have a Mandalorian employee on your outfit? My guess is, seeing the state of this place, you either just got scammed out of your payday by your last partners, or you are not very good at your job. My money is on the former." It came so natural, talking to a member of the galaxy's underworld. Maybe that had been my intended destiny from the very beginning.

"You have a big mouth, kid" then stopped to mull my proposal over, "rest up for now, because you have a lot to prove once you recover. And if I'm not satisfied, I'll turn your guts into profit on the black market. For the time being, I. Own. You."

"Yes, boss…"

He wasn't joking, a week later he was testing me to see if I had something to offer that was of value to the trade. Hand-to-hand combat, blade handling, marksmanship, slicing… anything Jer could think of, he would evaluate.

"Not bad, I would say 'slightly above average' describes your abilities pretty well. But don't get cocky, kid, you know the theory, real-life is a lot tougher than hitting static fake targets."

"Whatever you say, old timer. Do we even have a contract, yet? It's kind of annoying to live off ration bars"

"All in due time, kid, all in due time"

The thrill of the future job kept my mind off what had happened before, but every night when I laid on my cot I would think back, and what at first was sadness and resignation soon turned into anger. Maya had promised to be my friend, to be someone I could trust when others would try to physically and mentally break me, but in the end, she had become one of them, and she had succeeded where they had failed. She broke me mentally and nearly got me killed. Whenever my mind conjured her image, I would push back and do my best to forget it.

Jer hadn't lied about the job, soon we were neck-deep into some of the hottest contracts a bounty hunter could ask. He had a decent reputation from before, but as partners we became fearsome and infamous. I had channeled my anger, frustration, and hate into my new job, and created an identity I was comfortable with. Jer became the herald of doom, and I was the Grim Reaper. Running into him meant you would soon be looking at the wrong end of two blasters, and the killing soon dulled my perceptions and emotions. Some targets found out that I was supposed to be dead, and spread that little factoid around, only adding up to our reputation, but even then, we managed to keep surprisingly low-key when considering what people talked about.

The Empire wasn't too happy, though, and soon our job got harder and harder, and had other bounty hunters gunning for our heads too. That's when I lost Jer.

We had been hired to protect shippings from Imperial attacks, the farmers from a little dirt ball called Saleucami had banded up and decided to stop losing their profits to the powers that be, so they paid us to make sure the product got from point A to point B. We had felt charitable enough, and figure our sole presence would serve as detriment to the cowards in black. We didn't account for the Inquisitors.

We didn't know back then, of course, the only clue was the unique-looking TIE fighter that attacked us, Jer doing his best to line up a shot for me.

"Blow that bastard into pieces, kid! We are losing our shields!" he had yelled all the way from the cockpit. I had tried, and almost made it. I could have saved him. I should have.

The guy was good, he had used his escort as cover when I shot at him, sacrificing their lives for his own, trading ten idiots for the certainty of shooting us down. I remember snippets of fire, cracking glass, spinning out of control… then waking up three meters away from the crash site. I had somehow survived the impossible, again, but had ended up on my own, with no currency, and in a planet I didn't know much about.

I buried him near the wreckage, the bastard always did want to be buried with all he owned. He even took what I owned myself. You must be very happy, smug bastard.

So, again, I wandered, this time not very far, and I broke into one of the many abandoned houses. No food, barely any running water, but I had three metal bolts lodged in my left arm, a superficial cut across my right cheek, and I'm positive that at least one of my ribs was only still in its place because I was holding it in all the way there. The dirty linens made some crude bandages, and thankfully my medkit survived the crash mostly intact. Never say no to bacta.

Three days later, I was up again, albeit with a not-so good ribcage, so I had to take it easy. Small-time jobs paid for the food and the bacta treatment for another five days until I was fully operational again. Jer's death put a dent to everything, from my reputation to my confidence in my skills, and it became apparent that I would stay in Saleucami for a long time coming.

"What's that", I had asked Torg, a local scrap merchant, when I went to him to sell some scrap from the crash site.

"A piece of junk, it's what it is, I don't know why do I even have it still"

"You sure? Mind if I take a look at it?" I pulled the cylinder out of the scrap mountain he had it in.

"Agh, take it, as a gift. You want to end this deal or what?"

"Sure, how much do you offer, again?" I continued, not looking up from the object I was holding

"Two thousand credits! No more!" Greedy bastard, but I needed the credits.

"Deal" that was a day of discoveries, apparently, because I found something else that I hoped I wouldn't, "how much for that?" I pointed to a lone set of Mandalorian armor tossed against a corner.

"I got it pretty cheap, say… three hundred is good?"

"Sure, take them from my payday"

"You know how to negotiate, kiddo!"

I did, actually. The armor had been sold to him for cheap for one reason: it was the one the Hynehls and I had forged years ago, following the Mandalorian ways. It was adaptive, a requirement for young warriors, who were bound to keep growing up physically long after their coming of age ceremony, so it would fit, no question about it. This one had obviously been sold for peanuts because of what it represented: the Hynehls had done their best to scrape my footprint from their lineage, so now they had to get rid of every evidence that contradicted such idea. An anger I hadn't felt for ages came upon me, forcing me to take the money, the items, and run towards my makeshift shelter. Once inside and having made sure the entrance was secure, I slid into my hidey hole and took a good look at everything. The Acklay teeth emblazoned in the helmet smiled at me in a wicked way, fueling my feelings of hate, my thirst for revenge. But Saleucami had a way of soothing the afflicted hearts and minds, so instead of being consumed by anger, I looked back at the helmet and smiled back towards this icon of death.

"I know you. And you don't scare me."

I was right about the other item. The green blade sprang into action as soon as I hit the activation button.

"Nice" was all I could say, before I was twirling the weapon around, testing its balance, trying to get used to it. Basic blade handling made it easy to hold and operate, but fighting with it would require expertise I didn't have, or practice I had to make time for. Well, I was in no hurry back then, so for another two days I adjusted the armor to my current build, and used all my limited knowledge to come up with a fighting style that, theoretically, would allow me to use the saber's advantages in battle. It was weightless, it could deflect blaster fire, and it melted through nearly every material in mainstream usage. It was also incredibly easy to lose the grip on the handle, for which I would have to modify it to use it safely, and the plasma blade would mess up anyone who wasn't carefully operating it. I had nearly taken a limb off a couple of times by sloppily swinging it around, after which I realized I had to be more disciplined when practicing. Still, I was very pleased with my findings, but I wouldn't put it before any blaster for my personal rotation at the moment.

I spent one hundred and eighty full days in Saleucami, before earning enough credits to buy a fairly maintained cargo freighter, all for myself. Before leaving, I paid Jer one last visit, out of respect for the greedy bounty hunter that had helped me get back on my feet when everyone else was too busy trying to step over me. It would have been pathetic to him, to see me shed a few tears because I was… I am still, convinced that it was my fault he was now six feet under. I left with a heavy heart in my chest and the conviction to make the Empire pay in any way I could. I didn't figure it would define what I would be doing for most of my youth. Maybe because I wasn't paying as much attention as I should have.

So...hi? Yeah, I'm new around this fandom, in the sense that I haven't yet published a story here. I've been reading a lot of stories here though, and a lot of them are pretty impressive. Just adding my little speck of dust in here. I will be frank, though, I may take long between updates, I still have other fandoms to tend to and not as much time as I wished, but I hope this is not a deal breaker for you.

By the way, the first few chapters will be very OC-centric, so bear with me, please.