Laxis never knew what freedom looked like.
He and his brother had been slaves since birth. Their mother had been a slave since her childhood. Each night he would look out at the stars imagining what it would be like to fly among them- together with his brother.
He and Anakin were close knit, as all brothers should be in his opinion. They supported each other, helped each other and protected his other. Anakin watching Laxis's back and Laxis watching his. They had been doing this for years, ever since they started working for Watto.
To be fair Watto was a much better owner than Gardulla. Privately, Laxis though that there was a chance that Watto cared for the-
"Laxissss…, get in here quick before I force you too!"
Or maybe he didn't.
Laxos sighed slightly, a fond smile resting on his face. Watto was an acquired taste, he had his good and bad moments. Although they were mostly bad.
"Laxisss, now!"
"Coming!"
Laxis started jogging towards the storefront, it was a hot day today, even for Tatooine. He had heard a few crewmen of one of the ships in port complaining about the heat. One of them even started wishing for some snow to take the heat away.
Snow… He had heard of it multiple times before, he wondered what it looked like, felt like. One day he would find out he promised himself. One day. Just like he would one day see rain, feel it patter on him as he stood there soaking in the precious water.
He quickly reached the door to the main building, opening it slowly as he didn't want to fix the door again. It had been breaking down for months now, Laxis hoped that Watto would soon decide to buy a new one, or make Anakin build one from scrap metal. He would like the task, he had gotten pretty good at building these past years. Especially since he started to build that droid of his. Laxis had begged Anakin to call it Op Talkalot- short for Operation Talks A Lot. Anakin didn't find it funny, especially since Laxis privately thought that he had based C-3PO on his own personality. A fitting match, a chatterbox robot for a chatterbox boy.
Immediately after he entered the building he sighed in relief. Air coolers were spread out everywhere, Watto played it off as providing for customers, but Laxis knew he did it for himself. Even he couldn't take the heat.
"Hey Lax"
Laxis grinned as he heard a familiar voice from behind him.
"Anakin!" He shouted will turning around quickly, "When did you come back. I thought Watto sent you to Nist."
His brother stood before grinning in his own unique way. His blond hair fell across his blue eyes, similar to Lax's blue eyes- their Mom was going to have to cut it soon-and he was fidgeting with a vibrospanner, as always.
Anakin quickly came walking towards, "The store's closed." He said while hugging him. "Something came up that Nist had to deal with."
"So, your finally done there!"
Anakin raised an eyebrow, acting as if he had been insulted, "Finally?"
Laxis replied with a mocking smirk, "Yep, I can see you got slower at fixing droids"
He quickly jumped backwards, dodging Anakin's answering punch. He grabbed Anakin's outstretched arms pulling it towards him. Anakin hadn't been expecting it. He offered no resistance due to his surprise, stumbling forwards uncontrollably as Laxis pulled him.
Laxis twisted around, holding Anakin's arm tight. He used Anakin's momentum against him. He pulled the arm again, angling himself to throw Anakin over his hip. Anakin soared past him, allowing him enough time to pull Anakin back slightly so that he wouldn't hurt him.
"Aghh!", Anakin shouted out in pain.
Well… too much.
Laxis ignored it quickly moving to pin him down.
"I give in… I give in Lax!", Anakin breathed out with a loud gasp.
Laxis grinned triumphantly, standing up, while mockingly saying, "A win for me…again"
Anakin groaned out, "It's unfair, your six years older than me."
Laxis raised his eyebrow, "Hey, I was fighting 15-year olds at your age. It's not unfair. You just suck at fighting." While he was talking, he leaned forward too help Anakin up. "Anyway, just to remind you, you really should stop with the reckless punching. This is the fifth time I used that move on y- "
Just as he was about to help Anakin up, Anakin grabbed onto his outstretched arm and pulled him down. Laxis lost his balance, surprise marring his face as he fell to the ground. With a loud thump he hit the ground knocking the air out of him.
"Hahaha!", Anakin laughed out, quickly scrambling up and standing a few feet away. All the while laughing as he did so.
"You-tot-totally fell fo-for that. Your fac- your face when you were falling. That mad- made my da-"
Anakin broke down before he could finish talking. He rolled on the floor, laughing his heart out.
Laxis rose and slowly started walking towards Anakin, menacingly. He approached Anakin with an expressionless face and a slow gait; his little brother quickly paled in fear and started to back away.
"Look, Lax, I'm so-"
Laxis lunged forward, a smile spreading across his face, grabbing hold of Anakin and started tickling his sides.
"You think you can do that to your older brother huh?"
Anakin started laughing out, trying to gasp out words of apology, but he couldn't, he was laughing too much to do that. Laxis took mercy on his little brother, letting go of him and taking a step backward.
"Well consider me impressed, that's the first time you actually managed to get me on the floor", Laxis said with humour in his voice.
Anakin straightened and replied with a proud, "Thanks, I just saw the chance and I took it"
He started sanding himself off, a futile exercise as Laxis had never seen a person with no sand somewhere on Tatooine. The stuff got literally everywhere.
"What's happening out here?", asked a voice that rose from behind the curved table at the opposite end of the room.
Laxis shrugged his shoulders, turning around to face the speaker., "Nothing much Watto, just greeting Ani. I haven't seen him for a few days."
"I'll act like I didn't see what just happened then", answered Watto in a sarcastic, well what Laxis thought was a sarcastic, tone. Watto was waiting at the desk looking at one of the newest parts the junkyard had. Watto thought it was worth something, but he treated pricing as an art, and took forever to decide on a price.
Laxis and Anakin both laughed at this, they had a nice relationship with Watto, barring the master and slave part of course. He treated them nicely and in turn they worked hard for him, sometimes he would turn a blind eye to their fun as well.
Watto continued, "There's a Togruta here Laxis, has a problem with her speeder, I need you to fix it."
Laxis shrugged in acceptance, "Yip, should be quick, did she mention any specific problems?"
"I think she said something about the repulsor lift engines."
Laxis nodded and walked out towards the front. As soon as he exited, he immediately wanted to go back in. The heat was almost unbearable, even for him and he had lived here for his entire lives. The twin suns of Tatooine were high in the sky, bearing down on the unceasingly, yet there was a singular cloud. A cloud on a desert planet. A thing made of water on a planet devoid of water.
Laxis had a premonition, today was a day of change; a day of mystery. Something was going to happen today… and a sandstorm was going to come in today. Lax could already see the signs with the trained eye of a Tatooine resident. The increased wind, the sand flying about in small patches.
Lax hoped that they could get home before the storm. It was a dangerous time to be out, many people had disappeared in the storms, some of them had been Lax's friends. Most of them had been slaves, sent out to do their master's bidding. Lax was happy that Watto wasn't like that.
He quickly found the Togruta that he was supposed to help. The Togruta had one purple coloured tentacle and another completely green one, either a fashion statement or a genetic problem. Either way Lax found it weirdly interesting. Togrutas were famously self-conscious of their tentacles. Lax couldn't remember correctly but it was like their status was shown through the tentacles, and this was the first time that he had seen a completely singular colour tentacle.
As he was approaching the Togruta, she seemed to notice him.
"Are you the worker?" she asked him. Huttese was the common work language around here. Although he noticed that she had a strange accent to her, a small tilt. One that he immediately recognised, a voice-changer. The Togruta was hiding from someone and didn't want to be recognised. So the coloured tentacles may be fake.
"Yes", he replied.
"Well, follow me. The repulsor engines are breaking down. They need to be fixed."
Lax quietly followed her, she was a person in a hurry and these people were usually the ones that gave something to the slave if they worked hard. He needed the money, he, Ani and their Mom needed the money; it was to buy their freedom. They had been saving for years.
They quickly reached one of the rented garages a distance away from Watto's junkyard. This was a popular spot as many mechanics offered repair services to anyone that paid. This place was especially popular as each garage was in a warehouse that was sound-proofed, and it was popular behaviour to ignore any deaths. Looters came by each night to strip any bodies and rarely did a bay stay damaged for long. Compact sand was easy to make and was used for building here, and sand was never in short supply. This was a service offered by Jabba to increase his reputation and support.
Inside was the speeder and a couple of storage boxes. The Togruta went to sit on one of the boxes next to the wall, laying her blaster and durasteel knife on the box next to her.
"Quickly fix the speeder and I'll pay you extra, but do not look in the boxes. Or else you get nothing."
Lax replied quickly not willing to miss the opportunity, "Yip." He didn't know when he started saying that word, but he quickly grew to almost exclusively use it, as Ani did, it was something they shared; something they owned. So, it was special to them and Lax never needed to change it. It irritated the kriff out of Watto and he complained almost every time he heard it, but it only reinforced Lax and Ani's desire to use it.
He started working on the engines, first looking for the problems that had occurred. He dismantled it first, looking for any faulty parts. That part's okay, repulsors are fine… there!
The power cell holder. It had been hit by something and if Lax didn't see wrongly… it was blaster fire.
He had seen these marks before, people were shot left and right on Tatooine, especially here in Mos Eisley. If it weren't for the people that kept on traveling here the population may have been close to a specific number called zero. Well, he had to admit, those people were one of the main reasons why so many people died here. Right next to the Tuscans and slavery. He idly wondered if they were going to make a national sport of killing people soon, Jabba would like it.
He shook those thoughts of, he had a job to do and then he could go back before the sandstorm hit. However, the foreboding feeling would just not go away. He hoped that he was just imagining it… but it felt so real.
Time passed quickly as he worked, disassembling the whole engine to get to the holder. The shot that hit it must have been by complete luck, there was only a small gap to the holder through the engine, the accuracy of the shooter would have to be impossibly high to have deliberately aimed at it.
From behind he heard the Togruta ask as she approached him, "Are you almost finished?"
Lax glanced backwards, "Only a few more minutes."
The Togruta looked at her holoclock intensely, "Faste,r", she muttered loudly, "They are almost here!"
Lax looked at her confusedly, "Wha-"
Boom
The wall behind them exploded, sending rubble across the room. Lax and the Togruta were lifted by the force of the explosion and slammed against the opposite wall.
Lax's breath got knocked out of him, black spots were dancing across his vision, there was a high-pitched hum in his ears. There was an acrid smell in the air.
Detonite.
The explosion had been caused by detonite, one of the most common explosives used in the galaxy. Lax had smelt it before. Many pieces were sold in cantinas around Mos Eisley and he had longed been accustomed to the acrid smell.
Through the black spots he saw a figure walking through the rubble and smoke. It had a head that looked a lot like a lizard, with beady eyes and skin that looked like it has scales on it. It had a cloak hood on covering most of it, except the nose and mouth that extended outwards prominently.
A Kaleesh. It had an eyepatch across one of its eyes and it wore a dewback leather jacket, many in Tatooine wore it.
Especially…bounty hunters.
To reinforce the fact, a multitude of weapons was present on his body. A blaster at his hip, a few thermal detonators as well. Lax even saw a knife, strapped to the outside of his thigh. He also had some sort of tube on his back.
Lax instantly understood what was going on, this Kaleesh was a bounty hunter after the Togruta. No wonder that she said that 'they were coming'. The worst part was, no-one would have heard the explosion or cared about the building sharking slightly.
He struggled to slowly pull himself up into a sitting position. Somehow, he was uninjured, with only a few scratches where the rubble had hit him. He managed to rest his back on the wall just as the Kaleesh reached the Togruta.
The Kaleesh crouched down, slowly, serpent like, hissing into her ear, "Miks Lasa, how… excellent too see you again."
The Togruta, Miks, struggled to also sit up, but as she tried Lax saw a sickening sight on her stomach. There was a glaring piece of duraconcrete sticking out of her stomach, she wouldn't survive without treatment from a bacta tank, and the way that Lax saw this going she wasn't going to easily get that treatment.
Even though she was pouring blood from her she managed to summon enough strength to spit some blood into the Kaleesh's face.
The Kaleesh didn't even try to dodge, instead letting it hit his face. He didn't even flinch. Lax knew what that meant.
This bounty hunter had killed a lot of people before and was obsessed with killing. Lax also remembered that the Kaleesh were well known for their lack of mercy. He had a rising feeling that he was not going to be left alone by this bounty hunter even if he promised not to say anything.
The bounty hunters had a saying after all.
"No loose ends."
Lax waited to gain more strength and regain more of his hearing and vision, watching the bounty hunter intently.
The Kaleesh just made an odd grunting noise in response to Miks spitting in his face. Lax horrifiedly realised that he was laughing.
The Kaleesh just stood up, "Well at least you have some spirit. Good. Means I can get some satisfaction from this kill.", He slowly started circling Miks, as if a predator watching his prey, "Did you really think you could escape? You're lucky that kriffing Trandoshan, Bossk, wanted to play with his food. It let you live longer after all. Instead of shooting you, he only shot your fuel cell holder But he ain't here now and so, that means I decide what to do..." He trailed off slightly, as if wondering what to do.
Lax was shocked as he realised that the bounty hunter was saying that his partner, this Bossk, managed to shoot a fuel cell holder through a tiny gap in the engine. A shot which Lax thought was almost impossible.
The Kaleesh continued, starting to take out the long tube on his back, "Feel honoured that you managed to even take the gem from us. It's worth a few million credits after all." He stood above the dying Miks raising the tube above him in a downward double grip. "And you are honoured to die at the hands of…"
He plunged the tube downwards, shouting out, at the same time as end of the tube expanded, becoming longer… and sharper, "Inflier Grievious!"
It had turned into a knife, made from some metal he had never seen before. In an instant the knife struck Miks in her chest. Blood spurted out, splattering all over Grievious's cloak. Freezing her in a position of agony, her eyes bulging,
As Lax watched he realised something horrific. The knife was absorbing something. Streaks of red were being absorbed by the knife. It was Miks blood. Her body slowly withered before his eyes, turning shrivelled and dehydrated, until only a husk was left over.
Lax was frozen in horror, watching the knife in some sort of daze, what type of weapon was that. It looked so sinister and it felt like it was encroached by a feeling of darkness. He felt sick, maybe from the horrific sight or the feeling of darkness, or maybe both, but as Grievious turned towards him, wrenching the knife out of Miks' body, he knew what was going to happen.
He was next.
He quickly stood up, the black spots disappearing at the same time.
Grievious smiled sinisterly as he slowly approached Lax, ignoring the blood splatter on his cloak and face, saying languidly, "I would say that I'm sorry for having to kill you, but I'm really not and I do not like wasting my energy on things like that. I'm much more interested in how I'll kill you instead.", he paused hallway, as if contemplating, until a malicious smirk spread across his face, "How about with my bare hands!"
The hunter suddenly lunged at him, catching him by surprise, arms stretched forward to grab onto Lax's neck and strangle him.
Lax dodged towards the side unconsciously, stumbling slightly over a box. He quickly turned to face the hunter, alert and ready to dodge again. He looked around for something, anything that could help him. He grabbed a pipe from the repulsor engine next to him and prepared to use it as a club. At the same time, he tried to survey the room.
He was close to the corner of the room. To his right it was the lift with speeder on it in the centre of the room and to in front of him stood the bounty hunter. On the opposite side of the speeder the broken wall stood, a chance for him to escape.
Grievious smirked, excitedly saying, "Well at least you'll make this more exciting for me. I thought I would have to settle with only killing a person who wouldn't try to fight back. Almost reminds me of back home", However, the hunter sighed, almost pleadingly saying, "Don't try to escape Ill have to shoot you then. Its less… exciting for me."
Lax pales slightly at the threat, letting down his guard for a short moment.
Grievious capitalised on the opportunity, lunging at Lax. Lax tried to dodge to the side, but he was too slow. Grievious slammed into him, shoving him to the ground, the pipe falling from his grip.
Lax hit the ground hard, but managed too roll away, using the momentum of the hit to get farther away from Grievious. He felt a sharp pain in his stomach, he winced as he saw the blood splattered knife in Grievious's hand.
Grievious barked out in laughter, "Smart kid, but you didn't exactly help yourself. Now did you?"
Lax realised where he was as he scrambled to stand up. Ignoring the pain in his stomach. He was backed into a corner, with no way to escape.
Grievious approached slowly, pressuring Lax with his very presence. The malignant glint in his eyes only growing stronger.
Lax was panicking, he looked for any escape route that he could find, fear was consuming him. He was growing angry, angry at himself, angry at his slavery, angry at being stabbed and dying so soon when he was close to getting free. He was filled with anger.
But just as he was about to launch himself at Grievious for one final desperate, fear-fuelled, attempt at escaping he remembered, Anakin and their Mom were relying on him. Without him it would take much longer to free themselves. Without him, who would protect Ani from anyone that wanted to hurt him, without him, he and Anakin would never be able to travel the stars.
He calmed down, focused, the pain slowly disappeared, just as Grievious launched himself at Lax again. Time slowed down. Lax saw in perfect detail how Grievious was charging at him. He started moving to the right of Grievious while twisting and ducking at the same time and swinging his right arm at Grievious. It almost felt like he wasn't in control of his body. Something was controlling him, protecting him.
Time sped up. Lax ducked underneath Grievious's outstretched right arm. As he came up behind Grievious he hit him on the back with enough force to shove him against the wall.
Lax took the opportunity and ran for the damaged wall. He ran straight to the lift that held the speeder up and slid using the board that he laid on, to slide underneath the speeder. On the other side he sprang back up on to his feet in a smooth motion, running towards the hall.
He felt a sudden sense of danger at the same time. He threw himself to the side, dodging the blaster fire by an inch, landing on the boxes that Miks had sat on earlier. Knocking them over.
He quickly picked himself up and as he rose to a crouch, he twisted around to face Grievious at the same time.
Grievious was running at him with his knife in one hand and his blaster in the other.
Lax quickly fumbled around looking for something, he grabbed onto a hilt and some sand. Miks' knife! He finally had a real weapon.
As Grievious came rushing closer, time slowed time again. Something was calling him, telling him what to do, that he should focus and survive.
Lax listened and focused. He lunged forward catching Grievious by surprise if his slightly widened eyes were any indication. Grevious's blaster rose in slow motion, seeming to take forever, but just as Grievious was about to pull the trigger, Lax threw the handful of sand at him.
It worked. Grievious missed his shot as the sand entered his eyes and he flailed his arms. Lax took the opening. He kept moving forward, ducking under Grievious's flailing arms, even though the knife still managed to cut his cheek. and rose as quickly as he could with the knife pointed upward.
The knife entered the bottom of Grievious's head, spearing his forked tongue to the top of his mouth and entering the brain.
Grievious froze, eyes bulging outwards, oddly reminiscent of Miksearlier. He slowly fell to his knees, gasping and as the light left his eyes, he fell forward to lie spread eagled on the floor.
Lax also fell to his knees, calming his frantically beating heart. He looked at Grievious dead body and for the first time fully realised what had just happened. He started laughing deliriously.
He shouted out in pure joy, "I survived! I did it!", He whooped in joy till he immediately stopped when he again felt a sharp pain in his stomach. He looked down. It was bleeding, not too heavily, but still heavy enough to be dangerous. Lax ripped of a strip of his tunic and managed to bandage it.
This had not been the first time that he had been attacked or stabbed. He had once jumped in front of a knife aimed at Ani, when he was being robbed. Crime was rife in this city, everyone had been attacked at least once in their life.
He stumbled towards Grievious's body, intent on searching it for something he could sell. As he crouched down over him, he wrinkled his nose at the disgusting smell emanating from him. Blood covered Grievious, both Miks' and Grievious's own blood.
Lax managed to find another blaster, knife and a few credits and peggats, the currency of Tatooine. He also took the knife that was again in the shape of a tube. It must be worth a lot, or at the least no more killers could have this knife. He found nothing else of much worth, except for a holopad. It contained information about the bounty on Miks, and it mentioned that the main target was a gem that Miks had.
Lax remembered Grievious talking about a gem worth millions of credits.
He instantly gained a hope. A hope that he could find the gem, a hope that he would be able to sell it and buy his family's freedom.
He searched everywhere for it, in the boxes, and while many of them had things worth a few peggats, there was no sign of the gem. He checked Miks body as well, finding nothing but some money. After a few minutes, he slowly started losing hope he would find it. None of the things here he could take, otherwise Watto might get suspicious. The bodies and boxes would be looted within a day as well. No evidence would exist. He also needed to get medical attention. He was ignoring the injury for now, but if he fell unconscious here, he would be as good as dead.
As Lax was about to leave, when he realised that he had forgotten his vibrospanner next to the speeder. He turned to go back to the speeder.
As he was picking up the spanner, he froze. The feeling was back, as before, he felt as if something was calling out to him, somewhere in the speeder.
Lax couldn't hold back his curiosity and leaned to take the speeder apart more. As he disassembled It further the feeling grew stronger. He searched the speeder for what was calling to him and… there!.
"I finally found you!", it was a thin, strange, box hidden next to the power coils, where even if someone was looking straight at the coils it would still be hard to find.
Finally, he held the strange box in his hand. He was desperately hoping for it to be what he was wishing for.
With a trembling hand he slowly opened the box. When he saw what was inside his eyes lit up.
Inside it was a sapphire, but even he could tell it was special. It had a very light glow to it, almost seemingly mystical. The sapphire gave him a feeling of comfort and warmth. It reminded him of his mother's gentle, soothing. touch. It made him feel at home.
He was immediately entranced with it, gazing at it in a daze. He couldn't stop looking at it. It felt so profound to him, it felt very mysterious.
With great effort he managed to tear his gaze away. He put the gem back into the box and hid it on the inside of his tunic. Luckily it was thin enough to fit.
He quickly exited the garage, leaving everything else behind. He rushed back to Watto's, taking care not to bump into anyone and raise their ire.
Lax sighed in relief when he saw the entrance to the junkyard. He ran to it, never being happier to return to it in his entire life.
However, as he entered the shop, he calmed down and realised that he felt very faint. He looked down to see a red patch spreading across his tunic.
"Lax!", he heard someone shout in horror. He looked up and saw Ani rushing towards him.
Lax only smiled drunkenly at him, "Hey Ani. I'm fine reall-", before he pitched forward into Anakin's arms and his vision turned black.