Seren was, long ago, a relatively normal child. At first. He was born to Penelope and Richard Anilaar as Cisle Anilaar, and that birth was unfortunate enough to be on Nar Shaddaa, the Smuggler's Moon. His parents, loving as they were, attempted to shelter the baby from the cruelties of life on that world, to no avail. Eventually, Hutt Lords ensnared them into debts they could never repay. Except one way. The Hutt Lord in question offered the family to hand over the baby to a life raised in servitude, in exchange for their own lives. Caring and protective as they were, the couple refused the offer, and stowed the babe away onto the next freighter to anywhere named Not-Nar Shaddaa. The Hutt Lord, surprised by this trick, was caught unawares. Outraged by this defiance, Cisle's parents were murdered for the meager price of a hundred credits per head.
That freighter, stuffed to brim and unknowing of the infant aboard, made birth in Taris, the city-world less renowned than Coruscant but arguably just as densely populated. Upon unloading, the child was discovered, starving and crying. The captain of the ship could not take care of a baby, so he took it to the local authorities. After searching all known databases for the parents of the child, it appeared that they had simply been wiped from existence. Unsure of what to do with the boy, they transferred him to an orphanage. With no name behind him, he was given the generic Tatooine name of Gavin, with no surname in case he was ever adopted. Young Gavin, as he was now known, was raised until he was three in the orphanage, when Lower City gangs made a raid on the establishment in an attempt to make an example against the Tarisian Government. Gavin made his way out of the burning building, weak and coughing, but had disappeared into the streets by the time authorities arrived. He was assumed dead.
Gavin spent a year scraping bits together in the Lower City for the next year, getting shot at, or shot in some cases, for being a pest despite only being within the age period between three and four years of age. He didn't even truly survive on his own. He lived as a rat would, digging through waste and refuse for food, drink, and shelter. The life was miserable for the small child, and he was nearing the welcoming embrace of Death itself, when what may be considered a miracle happened. He was taken. Men in combat armour, for reasons unknown to Gavin at the time, scooped him up from under a pile of junk and took him to their ship, far away, where all he could remember was cleanliness and white before he went to sleep. For a long time.
THE BESTINE IV RESEARCH FACILITY
Hidden away amid the vast oceans of Bestine IV, a facility had been constructed that facilitated a top-secret private genetic experimentation laboratory. The purpose of this facility was one of ancient origin dating back to the years of Palpatine himself: to develop a Force-powerful super-soldier. The project was dubbed Sigma. They took unwanted children from across the Galaxy to subject them to testing, experimentation, and ultimately to fulfill their goal of creating an individual as harmonious with the Force as they could manage. There were no previous recorded instances of a surviving subject, and projections for the project ever turning a success were drawing up tiny percentages of survival chance.
This was the environment that Gavin, now nameless and designated SIGMA-446, was brought into. Out of one Hell and into another. He was cleaned, fed, nourished, and for the greater part of his fourth year of existence he felt somewhat happy. Until the machines came, and the tests started. It started simple. Blood samples, DNA testing, and brain scans. Testing his health and wellness regularly as he progressed, and ensuring their subject was at optimal health for the coming exercises. Then things got worse. At first, he would be put to sleep and have stitches, chemical burns, IV units that made his blood feel like it was on fire, and always the churning of machines in the background droned on like an unnatural, horrifying heartbeat of the facility. As time went on, the tests became more excruciating, culminating to the unveiling of the Immersion Therapy. In this state, 446 was sedated, yet still conscious, while they inserted needles into him, connected to just as many tubes, and connected monitor wires to him. By the time they'd prepared him, he looked less a tiny boy and more a massive circuit connector. Then they'd immerse him into a vat of chemicals and reactants that he was forced to breathe, or die, and the fluid burned his skin and made his lungs strain, and brain panic. He would stay in that array of fluids for days, or even weeks, at a time, subject to whatever the goal was of that category of torture. In addition to the scientific agony, came the necessity to keep the child intelligent. He was educated formally by a team of instructors kept on-site, who taught him what he needed to know on a general education level. Reading, writing, speaking, arithmetic, and many other categories were covered in-between sessions of trials. Sleep was hardly a comfort. Plagued by nightmares of his earlier years and of his current ones, 446 had no peace. No rest. No end.
As the toddler became a boy, he was subject to physical conditioning as well. Nothing too strenuous at first. Age-appropriate activities such as push-ups, sit-ups, and the other many exercises and fitness regimes were strictly implemented. If he became too fatigued, they merely extended the dreaded testing phases to cover unused time. His diet evolved, covering necessary nutrition to sustain the demanding lifestyle, and a whole section of his plate dedicated to supplemental pills. Some were vitamins, others were sedatives, and more were breakthrough versions of the immersion formula that sought to boost his exposure time to the cocktail he was administered. So life went on. Day in, day out. Rigid structure of education, training, and testing. Education. Training. Testing. Education. Training. Testing. Yet more years passed, and life only grew harder. At a point, 446 broke through the record survival rate for the Sigma Project. The team was baffled. Despite obviously hating every moment of his life, 446 pressed on. A determined scowl often etched on his face through everything, never relenting. Even in sleep he appeared as though he was fighting an invisible war. It was that determination, mixed with his unusual heritage of Human and Miraluka, that saved him from the damning horrors of Bestine.
The day came when 446 was let off the leash, so to speak. Upon his sixteenth birthday, a time that the researchers and scientists never thought would come, the level of administered sedatives was reduced. It was a slight reduction, but it made a whole level of difference in a creature that had been forged to feel like few others ever had. After a week, when the residual sedatives had worked their way out of his body and he was only on the reduced dosage, events began to occur that were labeled as Flags. The first Flag that showed was via holofeed from whenever 446 was unconscious. He would experience vivid dreams, his nightmares come to life. In his heightened state of awareness, those nightmares became akin to visions. He would near literally relive everything from the moment he had been put on Taris up to the present day, but with the occasional flash of his parents. Eyes in the raging storm within Sigma-446. Places of sanctuary in his subconscious. One fateful day, a member of the team asked 446 if he would like to forget. If he would like to be rid of the pain he'd experienced. As any creature whose existence had been nothing but pain, and did not develop an addiction to it, if a method was given to reduce the pain it was taken without question. So 446 agreed.
From that day, he was no longer Cisle Anilaar, Gavin, or SIGMA-446. He was only Sigma. Yet, something happened during the neurological wipe that was attempted. An anomaly that had wormed its way into the functions of Sigma's brain. Somewhere in the midst of the screaming and writhing against restraints as yet more pain was given in the effort to remove past grief, a mechanism was developed and triggered by Sigma's subconscious. Any attempts to examine or remove the anomaly were met with blasts of raw energy through their equipment or to their individual persons. So they left it alone, and sealed their own fates. Unbeknownst to the Project Sigma team, that little anomaly was a defence mechanism that the body had developed. Against pain, against itself, and against them. It called itself Sigma, the True Sigma. A power that lay hidden under the body and shell of the one they merely called Sigma. It drew from the energy that was given and crudely sealed it away for itself. There were gaps, jumps, and sparks of energy, but its intent was to live. There was no living on Bestine.
Years passed, and the inner Sigma let out just enough energy to give the living Sigma a taste of what he was capable of. Glimpses to tease both the man and the team to what potential truly lie within the boy. As he grew, he felt stronger. That buildup of power was a dangerous thing, and many began to wonder what exactly was going to happen. The stony face of the youth only seemed to become increasingly more hostile. Security was tightened, monitors were kept more active, and the whole air of the facility was nearly one of determining when the time bomb would blow. Their question was answered, in part, when Sigma, his strength intensified by the Force, punched one of the glasteel one-way windows so hard it cracked. The young man was quickly sedated and restrained. During this time, the scientists and security officers argued over what to do with their subject. Keep their star pet alive, or put it down before it became a bigger thread. Sigma was kept restrained to the best of their ability, but there was something they hadn't been able to tie down. Inner Sigma.
The Inner Sigma spoke, and spoke, and spoke. Constant whisperings, always talking, and the boy came to call that thing The Voice. The Voice spoke of freedom. Of power. Of things beyond the enclosure he was restrained in. It planted the seed for desire of more, and that seed took root immediately. He would mutter things under his breath. Reiterations of what the Voice had said. Things he needed to do. He needed to live. He needed to survive. He needed to escape. Time passed, the teams became wary of Sigma. The found him to be unstable. They tried what they could, but no matter how many times they attempted to sedate him, he only got worse. On the eve of his seventeenth birthday, though he didn't even know his birthday, he'd been acting more antsy than usual. Pacing in his room, restless, unable to settle down. They restrained him to a vertical table, muzzled him, and applied a sedative I.V. for the night. Then the Voice returned. It told Sigma that they were afraid of him. They did this because they were weak. They wanted to control him, weaken him. They wanted nothing less than the total destruction of what he was becoming. They wanted to kill him. In the madness that came from those words, Sigma felt power flood through him. A wash of what he was truly capable of, that overrode the sedatives. Through manipulation of the sheer volume of energy he was gifted, Sigma removed the needles, and blasted apart the straps. The fight for freedom had begun.
Alarms rang. Lights flashed. Whatever security measures they'd installed were quick to know that Sigma escaped containment. It didn't matter, though. The magnetically sealed door to the chamber he was contained within was nothing to the might of the Force, and it launched open and crashed through a wall. The hull of the facility breached, water started gushing into the facility. Security forces were at conflict of whether to purge or confront. To seal in the rogue experiment. They were doomed either way. Energy ripped from Sigma's body like a force of pure destruction. Floors were smashed, and equipment, wiring, and water came raining down from the upper floors that had ceased to exist in moments. With the stored power still coursing through his being, Sigma scaled the jagged ruins of the facility. He clambered up to the hangar bay, off to the side enough to not be affected by his unidirectional burst, and looked down upon the destruction he wrought. The hole was quickly filling with water. Evidence was being destroyed. The facility would never resurface again, except as crumbling ruin. Then a bubble came up from below. Then another. Sigma backed away, watching the water begin to boil, and his mind went to the reactor that fueled the facility.
With his fight reflect replaced by flight from the quickly coming destruction, Sigma bolted faster than he'd ever run. He took shelter in an amphibious freighter, where a few crewmembers were still housed. He fought them down, careful to not damage his escape vessel, and stole the codes from one of their bodies, and made for the cockpit. The series of buttons, instruments, and all manner of apparatus confused him, but he found the code card slot. He inserted it, pressed buttons as they lit up, and the ship came to life. The mountain began to shake, and water bubbled up from the hole while steam coated the forward viewscreen. The ship moved, slowly, out of the hangar. As it turned to leave, Sigma got a full view of the water leap out from below in a spout, followed by fire and concussive force that shook the vessel. Sigma set the ship at full speed, escaping the following blast that originated below but was forced upward by water pressure. The Bestine IV facility was no more.
ADRIFT IN SPACE
While Project Sigma prepared the boy for intellectual challenges, problem-solving, and other such tasks, he managed to destroy the whole facility before they ever got to anything to do with starship piloting. Quick as he was, a ship was no easy beast to tame, and before he considered the consequences of what could happen, Sigma pushed random navicomputer buttons and initiated the hyperdrive in his desperation to flee Bestine IV. Once out of the system, he felt all energy drain out of him, and he passed out in his seat. For the first time he could remember, he didn't dream. There were no nightmares. There was no Voice. Only the welcome embrace of exhaustion, and light dreams of flickers of light of multiple hues of colour. For the first time he could remember, he rested.
The ship lurched, jumped, and shook. Sigma was thrown out of his seat, and that woke him from his deep sleep. Mind alert and confused, he rose and looked out to find that he'd been thrown out of hyperspace in an asteroid field. With no clue how to handle the situation, Sigma fought the ship, crashing into more asteroids as he tried to escape the field. It was all to no use. Structural damage had been taken. There was a hull breach, sealed behind a bulkhead. The engines were damaged, the hyperdrive thrown out of alignment by the assault of space rocks. As oxygen drained out of the ship, Sigma fell from consciousness yet again. This time, he thought, to never wake again. His last thoughts of that moment were those of the promised freedom, of a better future. Something beyond Bestine. As his eyes drifted closed, he wished for this not to be the end.
As though to answer his wish, a singular freighter of unknown origin was running the asteroids as a training exercise. They discovered a short-range automatic distress beacon echoing off the asteroids, and followed the pinging until they discovered the derelict freighter. Thinking nothing could survive in the environment and state that it was in, they began to dismantle the vessel for parts. As pieces of hull were stripped away, their scanners picked up the faint life signature of Sigma, still floating unconscious in the cockpit. Confused, but excited, the crew took him aboard their ship along with weapons, engine parts, and other components they'd salvaged, and set back out to their headquarters.
When Sigma woke, he was in a holding cell, and his head felt like it was burst in two. He shakily got to all fours, then slumped back onto his knees to sit on his heels. He had no idea where he was, but that problem was soon answered when a small group of men dressed in common clothes and combat vests walked in. They carried sidearms, but little more. In his last throes for that freedom he sought, he tried to blast his way out like he did at Bestine, only to find that the Voice told him this was his beginning, and he needed to learn. Resigned to this situation, Sigma rose as ordered and went with them. They led him through the cruiser he was now aboard until they stopped at the entrance to the bridge. A brief run-down of how he was supposed to behave was recited, and then blast doors opened. Within was the bridge, a short one compared to the grand chambers typical of a larger ship, but still a large room. At the fore stood the captain. From the back, that captain looked like a slender man with a short black cape over a uniform that looked stolen from some military. Then she turned around to face him. They stood for awhile, examining one another, before she asked his name. Sigma being the only name he knew, he answered, and she made a face. She said it was a terrible name, and he'd be better off being called Scrub, and that was what she was going to call him.
After their introductions, two chairs were called in, and they talked at length. It mostly involved his background, to which he answered what he felt comfortable saying. As far as the Captain, Tam being her name, knew, he was involved in an accident and was stranded in space. She could accept he was reluctant to share his past. Many had secrets, but she had options on her plate and she was quick to choose one. So she gave him the choice. He could stay aboard, repaying his debt for their gracious rescue, or he could be locked away until they found their next slaver camp and he would be sold for quite the pretty credit. The idea of slavery gnawed at his brain, and he chose what she knew he would. To crew the ship.
RENEGADE LIFE
Newly dubbed Scrub, he began to work the most basic jobs of life aboard Tam's ship, the Riposte. He'd scrub floors, clean dishes, grease mechanisms, and various other jobs that nobody else wanted to do. It was hard work, but in that hard work he found solace, and in reward for hard work he got fresh clothes and hot meals. As he learned what to do and how to do it, he began to become more adept at what he did, and more tasks were assigned to him. It was a different kind of pain. Instead of torture, it was the soreness of muscle and tiredness of the body. Instead of mental agony, he was left thinking about little other than the task at hand. He came to enjoy it, and it gave Captain Tam a twinkle in her eye.
She started switching his jobs one at a time. Giving him more responsibility, and the more experienced crewmen and women would give him pointers he learned to learn and take instruction, and he learned he was a fast learner and could grasp the ropes of a task with relative ease and make few mistakes. Mistakes still made, but nothing exploded. Time went on, and his tasks continued to change, and his name changed from Scrub to Go'fer. He didn't understand the reasoning behind the Captain's whims, but such was how it seemed to go. He ignored the constant changing and just went with it, and he gained more respect from Tam through his lack of a desire to fight about it. Soon he was able to replace one of the older workers who needed some time to settle down. He started working on droid repair and computer diagnostics more than anything else, and found that he enjoyed that work. Once the old-timer officially left the crew, Go'fer had a new station, and he went for other people's tasks less and less often.
Eventually, Tam decided Go'fer needed a less joke of a name and simply started calling him "the Kid". She also decided that he needed to learn to fight, especially after he got beat in a squabble over tinkering with the droids and not just fixing them. This was a matter she decided to oversee personally. Kid was summoned to one of the hangar bays, much to the taunting of the crew. He arrive,d and she immediately bowled him over from the side and pinned him to the ground, announcing that combat training had begun. They started off in unarmed combat, and that carried on as long as necessary. It turned out that while Kid had a reasonable understanding of anything he put his mind to, it was nothing compared to a woman who seemed like she'd trained her whole life. It did explain how Tam was captain, but Kid didn't think on that at the time. For every time he felt he gained an upper-hand, he was beat back down, until he felt like he'd never gain a win. He pressed on, though. He enjoyed the challenge and was determined to achieve victory.
He became somewhat adept at unarmed combat. He was no expert, but he could withstand the onslaught of his captain for longer than a few minutes at a time. That's when she pulled a knife, and he started getting more and more bandages. Kid was taught the hard way how to disarm and turn the advantage against his opponents, and the trailing years of his mind's malleability allowed him to latch onto the instruction better. They advanced into knife and short blade combat, and with each lesson Tam wore a bigger smile. Their brawls became fights, and their fights grew longer and more intense. There came a tipping point where Kid's Force sensitivity kicked in and he started predicting the moves by instinct, and at one miraculous turn, he pinned his captain to the ground. By this point, their duels had gained an audience, and they all cheered at the young man's triumph. He helped her up, and she tossed him a wink.
Sure that Kid would be able to defend himself reasonably, Tam's lessons moved their focus to ranged combat. The first time he picked up a blaster, he nearly shot his foot off, but she quickly intervened and guided him through the motions, and reminded him regularly to keep his finger off the trigger. His first shots were at least on-target, but they were widely off. She helped him tighten his aim, and focus, until he could shoot with consistent fire in a spot at least close to dead centre. Then came the fun parts. She had set up a shooting range in the time it took for him to learn to shoot straight, and it had plenty of moving targets. He had to adjust to shoot them properly, and it took some getting used to to lead the targets and hit them properly. Even still, as she moved him further back he had to further compensate, and it felt like he was never going to get far ahead. One day, though, she announced he was ready. He had no idea what she meant, but she gave him a simple steel knife and a blaster pistol, and told him to keep practising. He had a week to brush up.
To Kid's surprise, when he looked at the date, he'd been on the Riposte a little more than a year. That meant that his birthday came and went at some point, and he was a year older. Part of him was a little upset at not knowing when he turned the next year. He wouldn't have the celebrations, and he didn't even know the number to assign. He shook his head, the somewhere-along-the-line-turned-something-year-old settling down for the night. This night, he was troubled with dreams of forgotten memories for the first time in a long time. They weren't images, more senses. Feelings, sounds, smells... vague things that were as helpful as looking at a room through a pinhole.
The week passed, and true to his word, Kid kept his duties up and trained with his combat skills. He tightened his techniques, but he was still admittedly an amatuer at it. He could hold his own, but he wasn't going to be a mass killer with his knowledge. Defence. That was pretty much it at that point. He was called over by Tam to the hangar yet again toward the end of the seventh day, and he wandered over to her. She told him they were taking a trip to Nar Shaddaa, and she handed him a backpack and told him to get ready. He opened the bag and found clothes, and his blaster and knife that went missing that morning, as well as a datapad and a handful of other items. He tossed Tam an questioning look but didn't say anything, and entered a freighter behind her. He ducked into the cargo hold and changed clothes. He looked less like a pirate and more like a generic spacer, now. He even had a holster for his blaster and a boot sheath for his knife. Tam told him to get strapped into the copilot seat, and she had that mischievous grin again.
Out in the middle of space, where he couldn't crash into anything, Tam put Kid in charge of flying. The first thing he did was worry and panic, and the ship went into a spiral. She laughed, and talked him through the steps of controlling, manoeuvring the ship, and how to react to certain situations. As he grew more comfortable with flying, she stopped the ship and explained to him the console and how most ships would have a similar layout. The explanation went on longer, explaining hyperdrives, nav coordinates, and the whole slew of astrogational common knowledge that Kid hadn't learned yet. A month or two passed of Kid learning to fly, how to use the weapons, and how to generally operate a ship to its fullest extent. Afterward, life went on as usual. He never boarded anything during his time. Despite his training, he was considered a technical person and dealt with what was brought aboard, not the actual bringing. Another year passed of learning, working, and honing his skills, when Tam walked up to him one day and asked to take a walk.
There was a long chat between the nineteen-year-old and the Captain regarding his future. She said that there was more to him than any of the crew could realise, and she felt he was being wasted as a pirate. When he asked what she meant, she went on a long rant about piracy being a measure of freedom, but for Kid is was a limitation. Instead of being free, he was being held back. She told him that some part of her gut knew he was going to do awesome things, and she patted him on the back and called him Atretes. He tossed her a curious glance, and she explained that her uncle, the one who got her started in this life, was named Atretes Rhoujen. She thought it would be interesting to see her protege of sorts go with a name dear to her. Kid, or Atretes now, was beginning to understand. She was sending him off. Their walk led them to the hangar, and she patted the ship he'd learned in on the hull affectionately. Tam explained that the ship was his now, and that whenever he was ready, he could leave. It took a few days of mental preparation, realising that this was real, and telling himself to tell people his name was Atretes, before he bid farewell to the Riposte and its crew in search of adventure and his own life.
"BURN SKY UNTIL WE SEE LINES"
The Galaxy had become his to explore. Atretes wandered for a good few years, experiencing different cultures, getting into fights, and generally doing all the things a new spacer would do with new-found freedom. He visited all manner of worlds, and nearly died on a few to various circumstances, but he enjoyed his freedom. The memory of the Riposte lingered on his mind, particularly those destiny-driving few words she told him. That he was destined for something greater. So he began the search for that something, whatever it was.
Eventually he came to this unassuming rock of a planet with low-built urban areas, a few suburbs, and not much else of note. It was here he found a girl that would stay with him until the too-soon end, Luna Vega. In a chance and odd twist of fate, they saved one another's lives and fell into a nearly 'love after first save' situation. Unfortunately for Luna, Atretes was searching for answers to his strange abilities, his Force sensitivity. He gave her a token with which to find her, and he got her to safety. From there, they parted ways.
His wanderings took him hither and yon, never stopping somewhere for very long. Eventually he came to Gamorr, where he encountered a strange man who appeared to have a taste for death. It took a few moments of tentative discussion for them to get on better terms than first impressions, and the man known as Salem Norongachi invited Atretes to his ship. Aboard the bridge of the ISD Hand of Fate, the young man learned more of what he had been given, and what his potential was. In a decision that paved the road ahead for better and worse, Rhoujen agreed to be guided under the wing of Salem. He was on the road to becoming a Force user.
THE BEGINNING OF THE END
Attached to learning under Norongachi came obligatory commitment to the Confederacy of Independent Systems. A modern iteration and not the version known to the times pre-ABY, this Confederacy seemed like a welcoming place where he could flourish. He helped slay a Tarentatek and a Sith Hydra, climbed up the ranks of recognition quickly for a newcomer, and rose to such a degree of trust with Norongachi that he began to receive special duties. The CIS seemed like a pleasant place, until everything shifted in a sudden deluge of information about their leader.
Isley Verd, claiming to be a freedom fighter and overall good person, was revealed to be a Sith Lord and Dathomiri Witch. Coupled with scandals innumerable brought into the open for all to see, the man fled into unknown parts of space to avoid the public eye that wanted his head. With a power vacuum in place, Norongachi attempted to take seat on the leadership of the Faction to hold together the dying beast. That's when Druckenwell happened.
Through a series of events that weren't entirely clear if it was sabotage, scapegoating, or simply poor judgment and weakness, the Battle of Druckenwell was an event that threw Rhoujen out of his dream land and showed him reality. A cold, cruel reality called war. He hid at that battle, too frightened and inexperienced to be useful, but as he watched men and women of both sides fight and die for what they believed in, something in his mind snapped. Some purpose to be fulfilled made itself known, and a rage boiled within him. It wasn't a fall to the Dark side by definition, but the makings were certainly there. In a fit of disgust, Atretes launched the sword gifted to him by Verd into the burning city, and moved for the evacuation shuttles with new purpose.
Many things began to happen at once. Atretes took new interest in inventing, the CIS began to crumble internally, he was given more duties in security and more authority and responsibility, and the winds of change were gusting. That's when the Fall came. In an assassination attempt on Salem Norongachi, the people of the Confederacy began to revolt against the current governmental system. Rhoujen took charge of the Force using military division known as the Knights Obsidian, and with them he purged the government of the corrupt Templar Order. By the end of the Fall and the following Rise where Salem revealed himself and took seat of the new system known as the Abrion Systems Authority, the young Apprentice found himself a Knight, and in charge of the Knights as Knight Commander Rhoujen.
THE END OF THE BEGINNING
Druckenwell left scars, Naboo left wounds. After the shift of CIS to ASA was complete, Norongachi decided to test the strength of the faction against their foe, the Omega Protectorate. The battle was hard fought and fierce. Unfortunately, such an environment was ill suited for a new military leader and fresh Knight. He did his best, and lasted longer than he'd expected but shorter than he'd hoped. Despite his willpower, it was not enough to sway the tide of poor tactical choices. He and his soldiers fought long, and they fought hard, and they did what they could, but to ultimately no avail. When the foe Jorus Merrill finally stepped into the battle, Atretes moved to face him in a turn of defiant anger. While Rhoujen's blows hit true, he was taken unawares by a projectile, and so ended the age of Atretes as it was known.
His body, battered, broke as it fell to the ground and into the waters that laced through Theed. It was swept away through the streets, his unconscious self mistaken for dead by the Protectorate soldiers, and he drifted over the cliff falls. Thrown over the cliffs, Atretes' form didn't last long in the jagged rocks and unforgiving currents. His body was broken and battered, his skin was scraped and wrenched across broken droid and building debris, and by the the time he regained consciousness he was already in bad condition. He latched into something for dear life and let out a choking call for help before he was swept under again.
An ASA droid commander designated Mayhem recovered him and the Technate Overseer Marek Starchaser sent a team to recover him. The process was delicate but expedient, and soon Rhoujen was under the knife and droid of surgery. At the expense of the Tion Hedgemony, Rhoujen was rebuilt, partially, and put at the mercy of Starchaser.
