Hello all,

This chapter has been a very long time coming. To say that life has gotten a bit chaotic on this never-ending turning wheel of capitalism is an understatement, but a day home from all three jobs had me creating this. I struggle to write certain things, and the chapters after this will surely fit that mark. I will do my best for those still reading.

Warning as usual: blood, gore, and certain behaviors may be triggering to some. I hope that the decisions I have made for young Djibourdi and all else in this story are done justice here. I look forward to hearing what you all think.

Respectfully,

Eliana

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The grumbling echo of a thunder-like growl sounded again and trembled his ribcage where he stood on the ridge. Everything Anakin had learned about sound in the Temple failed to explain how it carried from such a distance yet sounded as though it emerged right beside him. Neither Obi-Wan nor Yoda had ever taught him how to respond to what was triggering his body now – a presence that shocked goosebumps across every inch of his skin.

His eyes told him that the Togruta to his left were frozen in numbed silence... and they also told him that the figure in the distance, the one that marched slowly with thunder in his steps and a feral aura alight around him, both was (and wasn't) young Djibourdi. It was him in stance, stature and image but was something else in energy, intention, and strength.

The ruby skin and white starlit streak remained with the face paint gone, but the colors and forms of the montrals and lekku upon his head had changed. What was once purple and blue was now white and black, the ebony pigment colored the tips of the curled montrals that echoed the low, humming growl again. The weapons that had dug into the wounds of his arms, now crusted in dried blood since the bleeding had ebbed, snapped and spit with electrical energy and clicked as his fingers tapped together with his steps.

The armor and lightsabers that he had bore when Anakin saw him last were gone, leaving him with the double Echani blades strapped to his back and his sleeveless arms bare under the weapons. Anakin didn't speak Togruti, yet the Force let the words painted beneath the durasteel steel be made plain to him. Those same words, painted on the arms of the clones that fought and died in the distance, stole his breath from him.

They were simple in Basic:

On the Togruta's right: "For Shili."

On his left: "To the Death."

He couldn't look away. It reminded him vaguely of watching a natural disaster that swept away lives without care – a regal, feral thing worthy of reverence but demanding respect at the cost of insolent lives. Whether this was the padawan he remembered or not, Djibourdi had been changed. Changed into something... all-powerful. What walked on the other side of the forcefield was no longer just a Togruta. It was a force of nature made flesh.

Anakin's attempt to reach out to the padawan through the Force was immediately slammed back to him with a flash of an image.

Grey.

Grey eyes, blind and dull yet seeing and sharp.

Gone was the warm golden colored eyed that he remembered of his friend's padawan and in its place the grey irises swam, a storm cloud of the Force and its power shining through the swirling clouds.

A low, summoning call sounded from the curled lips. Its sound reminded the Knight of the snarling gundarks he had faced in the past, just as potent but far more powerful. It was made to call to something, Anakin understood, and it clearly wasn't the Togruta that surrounded him. Their reaction was one of timidity and reverence. No, this call was to something that wasn't ready to bend the knee, calling to the obstinate fool who would be made an example of.

Finally the human was able to tear his eyes away, just as Djibourdi (he couldn't say it WASN'T Djibourdi) took his first thundering steps onto the rubble of the hospital. The Algol was answering the taunt of the padawan with mocking of his own, the sharp shrieks of anger and daring dulled out by the beating wings that carried him toward the lone figure walking in the mist of light.

The rolling waves of the blackened lake near the hospital lapped hungrily at its shore in response to an energy that Anakin couldn't feel through the Palisade walls. It was a fitting tribute to the waves of energy pulsing over every living creature on the other side as the winged monster drew closer. Not so distantly, the thick rumbles of explosions and the roaring of engines overhead reminded him of the fighting that was still going on.

A louder call, one echoed with a snarling growl and a high-pitched warning, slipped past the bared teeth of the Togruta as his blind eyes rolled slowly over the land in front of him. The blue-white streaks of electric energy spouting from his arms hissed in anticipation and snapped at the ground, kicking up small clouds of dust.

The sound of his wings gave the Algol away. His opponent was blind, not deaf.

Those wings cast a shadow over the Togruta below as he finally reached the rubble remnants of the hospital, his throat pressing out a final snapping call as he came to a crunching landing. Thirty feet away his feet met the crushed duracrete, the force of his wings kicking up a cloud of dust where he stood. His tail rattled and whipped behind him in a potent threat.

His presence was greeted by a bone-rattling roar, a sound that was more animalistic and feral than Hidorah had ever heard before. He had led his legions on many crusades across many planets as they sought their new home, and the great Yun-Yammka had spoken this planet into their path. The Lord had warned him that an iniquitous thing roamed here that he would have to kill. He had gone out of his way to summon it. Here it stood.

All creatures served the Yuuzhan Vong.

This beast would be no exception.

The Yuuzhan Vong served the gods, and by the gods Hidorah would slay this... demon. They would see whose will was stronger.

Hidorah shrieked with a snap of teeth to answer Djibourdi's roar, his wings slowly flapping to blow dust and sand toward the reverent guardian. The scent of clone and Togruti blood wafted with the air. That disrespect was answered by another echoing roar, the blind eyes locking onto the defiant general. Anakin watched the regal head shake, a show of dominance, marked by a low growl.

His peripheral vision registered his own padawan, well-meaning and centered, attempt to coerce Eddy away from where he watched. Anakin admired his determination to stay instead, but his master's incessant lessons whispering in his head. There was only one way this match would end, and in a desperate show of respect for his code he shouted as strongly as he could to the scaled enemy. Tombur trained Djibourdi... whether changed or not, that honor to his master had the Togruta waiting.

The wrong move had only one consequence. Anakin's voice was strong when he called out to Hidroah:

"He's giving you a chance to stand down! Take it!"

The Togruta in the distance, body moving just slightly in an anticipatory dance, let out two streams of air from flared nostrils. Hidorah chose to ignore Anakin's warning, his feeling of holy abhorrence growing with every second he stared down the monster in front of him. It growled at him again.

Stand down?!

Him?!

Stand down when he stood face to face with the monster the gods had spoken of – when he was on the precipice of slaughtering it for the glory of his people? Never. The very thought had him letting out another trilling growl, one that was matched by the thundering grumble of the blind creature in front of him.

The eyes of the thousands of trapped Togruta focused on their guardian.

Neither titan was willing to back down. The clashing of energy permeated the air, sending an aching throb sounding through Anakin's ears. His eyes locked, unblinkingly, to the figures that stood in each other's path.

Hidorah had enough.

Those yellow electric bolts that Ahsoka had watched demolish the ships and speeders along the Palisade walls were now turned on her friend. Bolt after bolt landed on its target, erupting in smoke and sparks yet blessingly not damaging the crimson skin. The same glow that had protected the run of the Chargers protected Djibourdi now, absorbing the Algol's insolence and sparing his body from harm. That insult earned Hidorah an enraged roar amid the impacts and a flash of teeth -

From the ridge, Ahsoka's eyes caught the flash of blue-white light that throbbed through her friend's body then lit up the weapons on his arms.

The grey eyes swirled to pitch black.

The mist of Force energy ran to the guardian and fueled the growing light. It leapt from his raised left palm and slammed onto Hidorah's chest, scales and bits of armor flying amid the alarmed cry. Shock had the Algol closing his wings around his front and face in a desperate attempt to protect himself, those wings quickly enduring shreds at the next shot of energy.

A third shot forward, aimed at his feet, and refueled by anger he took to the air. With renewed rage he unleashed a hellfire of lighting, bolt after bolt hitting the figure below and the ground around him until a thick smoke stained the air.

For a heartbeat, Hidorah called out victorious. The demon was slain, gone from his sight, removed from this fight and any others that would come after.

Glorious, he told himself as he turned in his flight to circle where he last saw the demon, glorious agony searing his chest and shoulders. The smell of his own burning flesh was invigorating. A surprise attack by a desperate creature caught him off guard, a mistake he wouldn't make again.

As the small flames crackled below him Hidorah let out a relieved sigh as he passed a standing column.

The flash of light shot from the smoke, a beam of energy slamming so hard into his side that it knocked him into the column – and the electric pads Ahsoka had hidden.

She watched the electricity course over the Algol's body as he howled, his body surrendering flight and dropping him hard to the ground and his knees. The thundering roar sounded again from behind him and Ahsoka watched Djibourdi appear back as though from thin air. The two clawed hands, wrapped in durasteel, reached out to crasp tightly at the Algol's tail and hold it hostage.

Hidorah turned his head with an angered snarl, a single beat of his wings sending him airborne to slash at the black and white head – only to miss and have his entire body weight be sent slamming into the duracrete below him at Djibourdi's pull. Desperation had him trying again, meeting the ground again, trying again, meeting the ground again, until the rhythm changed.

Like an inconsequential leaf his body was wound up and send careening through the tatters of a distant crumbling wall, down a slope of rubble, and ever closer to the shores of the lake. Black blood poured from his lips. He couldn't move. Through his own ringing ears he could hear the distant thunder of the slowly approaching demon through the crackling flames and screaming in the distance. He couldn't move, this monster was going to end his life.

NO.

He pulled the adrenaline he could find together and whipped himself around to launch back at the surprised demon, acknowledging the enraged roar it let out when they collided. Its weight stayed rooted, he couldn't move it off its feet, so he instead surrounded its body with his own. His tail wrapped around its neck as tightly as he could manage.

Demon or not, it needed to breathe. His lighting didn't help him. Flight didn't help him. Armor didn't help him. Oxygen would.

It was perfectly sound logic. Perfectly sound logic that worked well, because not long later the roar it screamed at him was garbled with desperation.

Suffering was glorious, Hidorah reminded himself as he used his left hand to prop against his already strangling tail to view the last moments of his opponent's life. His blood froze when the black eyes rolled to him.

The roar melted to a snarl, the pupils dilating to take in his face in a rage as the electricity began to dance over the crimson skin. It built until it discharged, sending Hidorah flying back with a screech of agony. He landed heavily back on the rumbled ground long enough to recognize the agony in his body before the stream of white-blue energy was back. It cut through the ground, his armor, then focused on his left arm – that was rapidly severed from his body.

His screech was answered by the roar of the guardian.

Ahsoka felt nothing, heard nothing... but thought everything. Everything they had learned and been through together explained to her the fate of her brother, the fate he had taken from her. What was out there was no monster. As primal, animalistic, dangerous, strong, and dark he was, Djibourdi was still in control. Despite all this power, he was still, by some blessing of the Force, still in control. His steps back toward the mortally wounded Hidorah were sure, just as sure as he had ever been in anything he had done.

She watched his path halt with a soft grumble and a look to his left, away from his struggling prey. The montrals tilted before he softly hummed and picked his way over to the sound.

"Where is he going?" she heard her master ask from seemingly yards away.

'It's a great guardian spirit, Ahsoka,' Tocarra told her the night she had asked, 'Not a malicious entity. It's the guardian of life and death: the judge, jury, and executioner without bias. It will take life when it has to and protect it when it can. Innocence and condemnation, alive and not, life and death, black and white. It's the living form of grey. It is nature.'

It was that conversation that told Ahsoka exactly what she needed to hear. It explained what she watched now as the predator completely abandoned his prey to unbury the butterfly that had been stuck beneath the crumbled pieces of building, explained how the black eyes had turned back to moot grey as the little creature rested on an outstretched finger.

It almost made her smile at the look of neutrality the guardian had after just fighting as he had at the soothing flaps of the red, white, purple, and orange wings – and it gave her a feeling of warmth when it was raised gently up and allowed to flutter free and away from danger.

Now, it all made sense.

Nature was the guardian.

The guardian was the gatekeeper of the existence of all things the Force blessed onto this planet.

The one both damned and blessed to protect Shili was her friend.

Djibourdi was the Harbinger.

That sentiment was made clear, amidst the explosion that rocked dangerously close to the fighting pair and filled the air with smoke. Hidorah, desperate and near death, had clambered to his feet and took to the air. Ahsoka watched the blind grey eyes roll to black, red lips flickering over white teeth as her friend slowly turned to face the approaching enemy.

Before the smoke blocked her sight she caught the flash of blue-white light.

The rest was all sound.

The sound of the energy thrumming through the air.

The sound of it colliding with a solid object.

Hidorah's enraged cry.

The crashing of the frigid waves of the lake as something plunged into its heart.

Then the roar of the Harbinger to call over it all.

And then... quiet.

It was the first time that the sounds of nature had hit her montrals since this fight in the valley began. The attack raged on in the distance still, the explosion of rockets echoed to remind her... but she could hear the whisper of the gentle breeze under the clouded sky and smell the hint of rain through smoke. Her friends, shaken but thankfully unharmed, huddled together behind her.

For a short moment she was concerned. She could make the bold assumption that the fight was long over, but she couldn't let her mind rest until she knew. Ahsoka no longer cared about the war, or the separatists, or the Council. Her entire career as a padawan she had been a soldier, and now she could see where that would lead her to. Was this foretelling for her? Was the Force showing her what was to be?

She almost jumped at the little hands that found her leggings. Kachina looked up to her with bright eyes, one lavender finger pointing into the distance in the general direction of the remnants of the hospital. Her eyes, bright and shining, weren't clouded with fear. They were highlighted with happiness. She was smiling.

"Bubba!" she told Ahsoka, a tiny jump accented her pointing finger.

Ahsoka blinked at her, lost, then looked to where she pointed. All she saw was smoke, blooming flowers, and little dusts of light. She crouched to be closer to the toddler's level. Kachina called Djibourdi 'Bubba'... but she didn't see him.

"Kachi, Bubba where?" she asked her, earning puffed cheeks and a more determined point in the same direction.

"Bubba!"

Ahsoka looked again, this time seeing the figure that galloped through the flowers and grasses toward them. He moved freer and fuller of life than Ahsoka had ever seen him do before, and the flowers that danced at his passing sang their gratefulness of the Harbinger's sacrifice. Around her the other Togruta bowed their heads to their guardian.

So, she took it that Hidorah was dead. Djibourdi, still marked by the scars of earlier fights but seeming less worse-for-wear than his opponent, was free to run – and that he did, tearing across the land like a wild thing set free. Guided by soft, thumping calls he moved faster than he ever had before, effortlessly floating through the grasses. When he reached the edge of the ridge Ahsoka watched him jump, one after another, up the length of the ridgeline before he came to rest above them on the other side of the forcefield.

His back was to the Palisade when he finally stopped.

"Kachi," Ahsoka spoke without looking away from her friend for a moment, "Let's go back to Eddy now."

She scooped the child up and returned her to the shaky arms of Eddy who also watched the figure in the distance... the one that had grown suddenly still with the grasses and roots beneath his feet thrumming with light. He wanted to help him – this was his friend. His son. So close, yet now, so very far away.

"Stay here," Ahsoka told him and their mutual friends as she stood, Anakin close behind her. Before she set off, all she could offer the doctor was: "It's going to be okay."

Before he could ask her if she was sure, both Jedi were jumping and leaping their aching bodies up the ridgeline as fast as they could.

The world was very different on this side of the veil, Djibourdi told himself. In this void that he walked in the colors, scents, sounds, and sensations were intoxicating to his mind – a mind set free to embrace all of these inputs on a higher level than he had ever believed possible. He had done what was expected of him he mused as his vision, black with the world echoing back the sound he sent through the Force as a mute grey to highlight his surroundings, pulsated.

Well... he had MOSTLY done what was expected of him. What was left, what – no, WHO – he was seeking with the energy he sent into the plants around him, was what mattered most. The clones and Outsiders entangled below were now footnotes in Shili's rage. She demanded the one who instigated this insult be dealt with in a fate decided by only himself... but...

"Why do you hesitate, child?"

Anari's voice spoke clearly to him, and he could feel her warm presence over his shoulder. The presence of the others, instead of being a weight on his soul, filled him with warmth instead. Still, he didn't know how to answer the question. His guardian mother pressed more.

"Why do you still hold back?"

Somewhere distant, he could feel Ahsoka reaching to him. How he wanted to answer her, be there for her, show her he was still alright despite all...but this was his burden to bear. Not hers.

"I don't know."

"You know well that Skywalker will end the life of the shadow-bringer himself should you lower the walls. His path is one of shadows and dust."

"His change won't be for several more years," he heard his voice whisper aloud, "I won't be the cause for its premature birth."

He wouldn't be the cause for Ahsoka's agony any sooner than it had to be... if he couldn't find a way to... but Tombur had taught him to...

His master's presence soothed that worry, adding his energy to the search echoing through the plant roots. Djibourdi would do it. He could no longer outrun the destiny that had come for him. Djibourdi, young padawan of the Jedi, was dead. He had been culled from existence to expunge the darkness he emitted, his sins and failures turned to the soil that thrummed under his feet. Reborn this day as the

"I need to know," he spoke confidently now, blind eyes focused in the distance, "that he is guilty before I damn him to that fate."

"We will guide you to this trial, Sitka, should you open the path for us," Nuet whispered to him with Karaci echoing her sentiment with a pulse of positive energy.

The smallest of smiles twitched his lips. It dropped quickly after.

"I wish to make that decision on my own."

They were silent. Then:

"We will allow this until there is no recourse. We will not stray far. It will not take much for you -"

"Sholari, M'adra," he assured her, one hand ghosting over the canister attached to his hip, "I just... must be sure. If I am ever to find rest, this chapter must be closed."

"If you do this, Red," Warren hummed, "you know that your people might come to fear you."

"I cannot control their fear. Only my own."

The pride that warmed the Force echoed through the Void. Djibourdi went to speak again, but was quickly silenced by the new presence, drawn ever closer and more determined.

Desperate.

Worried.

Ahsoka.

Oh, how he wanted to tell her the truth. He wanted to tell her about what was to come, about what the Force had decided for her, what his very existence was the foretelling note to... but he was now a servant to the will of the Living Force itself, damned to forever walk a razor's edge between both worlds. The time would come one day that she, and everyone else he held so dear, would pass on.

So long as the Living Force was on this world, he would be forced to remain to serve its will. To serve Shili's will. To keep her safe.

He couldn't deny what he was. He just wished it was easier to tell her.

Her Force signature called to him from the other side of the force field, as did the tinged shadow of her master. The soft, grumbling growl left his throat at the presence of the human before he could drown it. Shili knew who he was, but he was not the shadow bringer this day.

Ahsoka, despite his best efforts, had found a way to latch onto his signature through the Force like a whispy seed clinging desperately onto a piece of cloth. She couldn't see or feel what he did, but she could hear...

He couldn't wait much longer... or he might let her in.

In the distance, far on the other side of the valley, he found his target. The growl from his montrals rolled over the Togruta below him.

"What are you doing?" Anari's voice sounded with a tone of correction. He could feel Ahsoka respond to it, "Why do you wait?"

The Void echoed and showed the images of a destroyed world, the snarls and hisses of the Outsiders painting it a tinge of grey.

"Have you forgotten how they have slaughtered? What they have done?"

The screams of the slaughtered and the wounded cry of animals washed over him.

"What of the one who brought them here?"

The growl rumbled again, the weapons on his arms thrumming with energy. Ahsoka was gently tugging on him, trying to keep him here. He couldn't do that.

"Our people believe you to be my Harbinger."

Anari's hands found his shoulders, her face leaned down to be next to his as she focused on the single life form in the distance. Her words changed the flow of his energy to open the door.

"Prove them right."

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We are now on the most awful, loop-de-loop part of the ride. A few more chapters should tell the tale, and I hope I have done it justice.

Hail the Harbinger.

Happy Writing,

Eliana