AN: So, I now have five doctors telling me I'm too stressed out. As in, my body has been hurting me stressed out because, well, life, so I took a vacation, and guys, I love sleep, my fur babies, and not answering my work email which is not attached to my review email, so bring me a little joy and comment, in return, next chapter is destined for fluff, somewhat… I have hope that I might stay on track to the outline.
Appo: Right, Outline?
Outline: …
Appo: That wasn't a no ;D
Chapter 16 - Losing It
Obi-Wan screamed into the Force. Tahl was getting worse.
Why couldn't he reach anyone else in the Force? Why couldn't he reach past the darkness to his family?
He started to recite every name he remembered, every name he hadn't let himself dwell on because, during his two years stationed at the Temple, none of them had bothered to visit or message him, he held their light in his mind as best he was able to reach out to them…
Nothing.
There was nothing and no one.
Bitter tears scratch the caked dirt on his cheeks.
They could not last like this.
Technically, the tide had changed and the Young were rapidly winning the conflict. But in truth, there was nothing to be won. No way to trust that once they brought the fighting to end that it would stay ended. That the Elders wouldn't smother them in their beds or poison their foods. Obi-Wan needed to get them off world.
He needed someone to help them.
oOo
"I need my helmet," Jinn–or Revan, Darth Revan– as he suddenly wished to be called.
Tor was glad his own helmet was on to prevent the man from seeing his eyes roll.
"My son is on it, can you give it rest?"
Bevwen handed Tor the syringe. Truth serum didn't work well, but mixed with some hallucinogenics, it was possible to get some answers out of someone.
The needles plunged into the muscles of the young man's neck as he startled awake with a cry that faded.
Dark brown eyes went wide but unseeing. Tor didn't know what the child was seeing but it was likely nothing pleasant.
"Where were you going, Jango?" Tor asked with false concern.
The boy's eyes flickered but we were unable to track anyone in the ship's hull. "Buir."
"And what were you going to tell your buir, Jan'ika?" Tor asked.
"Melinda/Daan," Jango sighed then repeated a stream of numbers, on repeat like a mantra.
Tor festered at one of his men to search the coordinates. "Why what's happening there?"
"Dar'manda," Jango shivered. "Ade and ik'aade fighting a war against their dar'aliit."
Ik'aade, their littlest ones.
Tor blinked, exchanging a look with his second.
Sure, the Watch allowed their teenagers to go to battle, lest the younger generation think this shit was a game like the New Mandalorians did, or pretend it wasn't what it was like the True Mandalorians but no one sent ik'aade to battle their own kin.
"Who told you this?" Tor asked, glancing at Revan who stood in the shadows like light was a toxicant he would rather not inhale.
"Obi-Wan," Jango murmured, tears falling down his cheeks. "Buir was right. It was a trap– I–" A bit of clarity came back to his eyes and he was able to look at Tor dead on.
The boy froze, tears continuing to fall as he began to hyperventilate.
Tor wondered if the boy recognised him even in his altered state.
Montross had told them that Jango was getting visions, that he had the Jetii Order mark on his wrist (which he did), and that the boy was claiming to be having visions of Obi-Wan Kenobi.
Jaster Mereel was superstitious enough to fear the Jetiiese and Sith, he knew enough to know that being Ka'ra blessed was often a curse.
The Watch had different views, many were like Montross, hostile to the point of mental instablity about the Ka'ra touched, but no one in House or Clan Vizsla thought of the Ka'ra as belonging to the Jetiiese.
The Vizsla line, the Gorane of their fraction were highly secretive about their personally held beliefs, beliefs they did advertise lest someone else be capable of wielding the Dark Saber.
So where Jaster Mereel was a historian of their ancestors' ways, Tor knew their actual prophecies that had been told and passed down from Tarre Vizsla's first heir.
The Lost Son of Mandalore will return to us, and with him either the greatest civil war of our history or become our salvation.
And it was with this knowledge that Tor believed Fett, believed that Obi-Wan Kenobi had finally returned to the galaxy.
"Obi-Wan Kenobi is on Melida/Daan?" Tor asked.
Jango who was still hyperventilating nodded then shook his head, wrapping his arms around himself then send between shallow gasps, "Lies. Liars, go away– Go— way…" The last word choked on a gasp as his eyes rolled back in his head and he slumped against the wall.
Tor looked at his medic, who merely shrugged, "I think I maybe gave him the version of the cocktail meant for Zabraks. Bit different, given they have two hearts and all."
Tor wanted to be angry but he couldn't. Once he dropped off the overstock and foisted the Sith Lord off with one of his men, he would be taking a battalion to Melida/Daan.
Let it never be said that Clan Vizsla didn't care for their own.
oOo
Jaster was incensed as Myles and Kal stripped Montross of his weapons and armour.
"Where did they take him?" Jaster growled.
Montross shook his head, "Alor, it wasn't me. I would never betray you."
Jaster backhanded him before grabbing him by the collar of his flight suit, "You've already betrayed me, you were the one on guard last night."
"Jango doesn't need a guard."
Jaster had to restrain himself from choking the man, "He's missing, his armour, it was left in his tent. Jango wouldn't have left his tent without it."
"Obviously," Montross drawled. "That is not true."
Kal punched him, nearly dislocating the traitor's arm as he jerked in his restraints. Kal spoke looking as if he would happily finish ripping him limb from limb. "We already sliced your ship's log. You've been in contact with Tor Vizsla."
Montross's expression of shocked denial he had been holding onto fell into a smirk. "You're a fool, Mereel, and your child deserves everything coming to him for trusting you."
Jaster grabbed Montross's jaw in a crushing grip, "You were the one who slaughtered the Jetii younglings. You massacred children."
Montross snorted, jerking back as he said, "Children? They were cursed, death was a mercy to the slavery than they would have known in the Republic."
Jaster hated him.
Hated that there was such a large population in their system that hated the Ka'ra touched.
But Montross was right, Jaster was a fool to not have sliced into his people's flight logs before. Montross had been clever enough to cover his tracks, but the man's ship was old enough to have a mechanical log. That slicing into that data was a serious breach of privacy did seem foolish indeed in the face of losing his son.
Jaster had grown up with Montross, they had been brothers, not in blood but in every way that had mattered.
Montross had followed him when he had been exiled for the Journey Men.
"Why?" Jaster asked, remorse colouring his tone.
Montross sneered, "The cursed are attracted to each other, I knew if I followed you, I would find more of you to snuff out. When you became a leader against Mand'alor Vizsla, I was perfectly placed to serve my true people."
"Where is ner adiik?" Jaster growled.
Montross laughed.
Laughed.
"You will never reach him in time."
Jaster felt as if he had never known this man, yet, regrettably, he did know Montross.
His lack of apathy had always made him one of his most practical warriors and his lack of ability to feel physical pain made him among his most dangerous verde.
Kal was twisting Montross's arm in a manner that would have almost anyone else in tears, Montross looked as if he had yet to notice.
This was not a man that could be broken, regardless of torture being an unreliable method to gain intel.
Jaster pulled a throwing knife, and in a swift motion, brought the blade up across the delicate flesh of his stomach, dipping just under his ribs, puncturing his lung. He would drown before he bled out.
Jaster left the blade there to further ensure the long didn't merely collapse or allow the blood to flow out.
Montross coughed on a laugh, hacking, he looked up at Jaster with a glare, "Is that best you can do, Ka'ra Cursed?"
"String him up," Jaster said. "You'll be dead before sunset, you will drown on the taste of your own blood."
"Kark you," Montross growled, his eyes going wide as he realised how slow a death he would have and that it would not be in a blaze of glory.
Jaster's knew that his own expression was ugly as he promised, voice lowering with each word
"Your corpse will be delivered to the Jetiiese to be thrown in a trash compactor and your armour will be melted down into ore and gifted to the Duke for the pain you brought his family. Your memory, your legacy, will be used for decoration of the palace, mere trinkets, pretty and useless. You and your ancestors shall be forgotten."
Montross snarled, finally beginning to struggle, "Mereel!"
Kal grabbed him back the nape of the neck, yanking his skull back to expose his throat.
It was not the pain of the action that made Montross react but the humiliation of the gesture.
Kal's smile was filled with vindictive pleasure, "You've lost the right to address him, dar'manda."
Montross screamed in rage, and Jaster left them to it, praying to all the stars that he would find a way to be reunited with his son.
Before it was too late.
oOo
Obi-Wan thought that Nield would forever have a love for pyro-technics.
Because Obi-Wan had spent the last few months stealing bacta and hygiene, the Elders had decided to put their efforts into guarding the hospital.
Which would have been sensible if not for the fact they would rather win against their own children than allow them to get the care they so desperately needed.
Too bad for them, Obi-Wan had been raised by strategists who were more than capable of waging war on a galactic scale within an Empire that was almost completely militarized.
Obi-Wan wouldn't risk the hospital.
But the weaponry store houses and factories?
Obi-Wan set up his own line of production. Youngest kids at the start of the line with the least harmful chemicals, moving up toward the oldest. Nield and Obi-Wan were the ones to put in the final ingredient and seal the mish-mash of molotov cocktails.
Nield and Obi-Wan took their time walking them out to the store-houses. They had spent weeks planning this attack. Amateur architects that they were, they had to use their best guess of where they should place their makeshift bombs.
But at least they could say it wasn't thoughtless.
Obi-Wan went out of his way to make the Elders think the Young camp was in the North East when really, in relation to the capital, they were hidden West of the city.
The Elders were violent karkers, but in many ways, it was senseless and self-destructive violence.
If Obi-Wan had even a single squad of his buir's commandos, the Elders would all be dead nearly two years ago.
Using the Force, Obi-Wan levitated the bombs into the joints and doors of the warehouse.
Once they were placed, Obi-Wan wrapped an arm around Nield's waist as the other boy draped an arm around his shoulders. They moved through the night unspotted, most of the city was under energy reserve, so in the dark of night there was no way to spot them with the naked eye.
From their new spot, Obi-Wan began setting up the sniper-blaster he had stolen. It had been barely used, likely because it was new enough that there likely weren't many Elders who knew how to use the advanced settings and adjust the scopes. Considering the majority of the population had never travelled off world, he wouldn't be surprised if their advanced mathematics and navigations.
As a Jedi, blasters were not the focus of his training, not when Soresu was a far better use of time to master in a volley of fire, as it was defensive and offensive. But his buir had taught him how to use a ranged weapon.
As well as his buir's old friend who was one of the lethal snipers in the empire. She had been able to shoot through the neck of a bottle and shoot the bottom out of it.
He missed her, she had been the most patient people he had ever met, certainly one of the most patient Mandalorians.
Letting out a long breath, Obi-Wan fired for a window, and once the glass fell, he focused the scope on the boxes of ammo and explosives they knew from past raids were there, he fired thrice.
Then he changed his aim for the main corners of the building where they had placed their own explosives.
Flickers of life-Forces blew out in the Force as the explosion created a minor earthquake, the flames jumping toward the stars.
There hadn't been many guards, but anyone near the building wasn't going to be okay.
As much as Obi-Wan wanted to take the sniper rifle with him, speed was more important as the fire not only spread to nearby buildings, but the light of the fire made visibility easier.
He and Nield fled before the Elders could regroup. Obi-Wan would just have to hope they didn't check all the roofs and he could come back for the weapon.
oOo
The first few days, Jango was in too much shock, too grieved for his predicament to fully settle in. He wasn't sure how long ago those first few days had been. Days, weeks, and months blurred together.
He was no longer a man, a Mandalorian Warrior, he was Slave-7567 on a spice processing facility where the air was saturated with a drug that kept them all compliment. Every slave would one day be addicted to the spice to the point where the next high was a greater motivator than the whip.
The spice seemed to awaken in Jango his every worst thoughts and memories. He did not know how anyone could want this state of mind much less get addicted to it.
Images of his parent's deaths, of his barn on fire, and of her sister's screams as she was hauled away into the woods to be permanently silenced.
Of Jango's own weakness as he cowered in an overlooked shed, waiting for Tor Vizsla to snuff him out too.
He was rarely spared even in the few hours of oblivion avoided to him as he was assaulted by nightmares.
But not this sleep cycle. This time he saw Obi-Wan who looked worse than he had before.
Immediately, the other boy was at his side, cupping his face with gentle but thickly callused hands, "What happened?"
"I was sold," Jango tried to snap but he was too exhausted for the heat to carry. "This all happened because I couldn't break my connection to the Ka'ra."
"This isn't your fault."
Jango's head drooped, gaze going down to his manacled limbs, "If I had only listened to you and Buir..."
Obi-Wan's hands covered his wrists warming the chilled metal, "Jango, look at me."
It took more effort than was pleasant to raise his eyes to meet the beskar grey of Obi-Wan's.
Hadn't his eyes been blue?
"Just remember, there is a reason they should fear the Ka'ra blessed."
Jango snarled, a serge of fury burning throw the low-level haze in his mind, "Are you saying I deserve this?"
"No," Obi-Wan said. "Never. I'm saying you have the strength to get yourself out. They should fear you, because the Force is with you, and the light of the stars is infinite."
Jango woke from one of the supervisors kicking him in the gut, but for once, his mind wasn't spiralling. He couldn't be sure if it was Obi-Wan's words or the spice-laced air, but Jango felt as if the stars themselves might truly be on his side if he could just hold onto hope.
oOo
AN: I will say, y'all you should have seen this coming. I did title this story the Lost Child of Mandalore… You can let me have it now :'D