Sins of the Father...

[Julius Sedaire]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-7IHOXkiV8​

​

Location: Concord Dawn - Ruins of Mereel Compound​

​

Daymon wasn't quite sure why he was here, and grey-green eyes scanned what looked like a deserted ruin. Banners of red and gold were left half burnt and rotting on the ground, and proud walls were left in rubble heaps where they were torn down. Bodies had been burned unceremoniously, and skeletons left in armor to rot. Whoever had lived here had made an enemy of someone in the worst way. On the gates, it was even visible that someone had once hung there, crucified and tortured by the looks of the crude cross erected over the beskar keystone in the arch.

Casually, or as casual as he could in a forgotten graveyard that made his skin crawl, the cartel lackey and mercenary waited. Corellian nerve had half a smirk flickering on his lips, but something nagging at the edge of his attention had kept him from fully relaxing, and that same voice had him show up in full gear and armed to the teeth. A note had brought him here, innocent enough in method if note in construct. Hand written in iron ink, blotted with sand, and on fine vellum paper sheathed in a thin sheet of waxed rice paper.

Before he had even broke the seal, he knew it had something to do with Mandalorians. You didn't work as a mercenary and bounty hunter and not know the seal of Clan Fett. It was a gorgeous hunter green silken cord tieing a wax token in green with that sigil. The letter was formal, but not overly stiff, and requested his presence here on this day in order for 'effects and heirlooms of his paternal family lineage' to be passed on.

Where here was, he wasn't sure, and he wasn't sure why he was here if it had to deal with his father. All he knew was the man was a drunk and never stayed long, chasing the next fortune he could turn as a hired gun, and blind with hatred for the One Sith. His mother had tried to tame what she said was a wounded gundark trapped in the flesh of the man he was sired by. She insisted there were glimpses of a lost person in their time together. Daymon claimed he couldn't remember him at all.

Sighing, he lifted his helmet off and looked about, cradling the Vanir made armor in his left arm, right arm shading his eyes to look about for whoever would be coming. The face would bear an uncanny resemblance to the man that [member="Cato Fett"] would come to speak to him about, enough so that most might wonder if the elder had defied death once again.

 

[Cato Fett]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_XgR5tg67KA​

​

Past heath and road bramble, through a natural padlock of ibben-thorn overgrowing the outer stockades and broken gatehouses, a buckled keval mount leaking from wounded fuel cells limped after the compound. Cato Fett lolled in the scratched saddle-mount, chased by wind-roar across his shoulders. Looking fatigued, ratty and tattered, sleeves torn, welts and electro-chem bruising down his throat and sternal plate, blood dried now to a fine patina darkening one corded arm. Each knuckle was swelled with livid, yellowed bruising.

-

“You’ll want to declare,” said a hatchetman. Garon footsoldier, tall, wide in livery and casement. Bulked with on-board hardware keyed to fiber-cabling nesting up the spine of his gorget. Beside him, six other ‘gatekeepers’ barring entry and exit from the hanger at Sundari. A couple wore matching Death Watch patches; locks of torn scalp and hair hung tied by gut-string thongs off their bandoliers

“I’ve only landed for provisions,” Cato said, counting out their individual armaments.

“Sure thing, vod,” One spoke up. “But those are traitors’ colours you’re running with.”

“I’ve betrayed nothing.”

“Ah! Then surely, very surely, you’ve no problem getting with the program, offering the Infernal your bent knees, and every solemn oath you can remember to get the feth in line and stay there.”

“This is an empire,” One more broke in, with more than a little savouring of the word.

“This is a brothel on fire,” replied Cato. He’d already had the killing sword gripped, drawn, and cutting the lead hatchetman clean through his waistline, organ, vertebrae and spinal cord all. The other six mobilized for close-quarters, arming crushgaunts, freeing shortened beskad gladius’ and keying their vibro-edges to full, severing harmonics.

-

Fires had long gutted the Mereel compound, eating through punctures created via aerial bombardments sacking the in-laid defense networks with high-yield munitions. Reinforced industrial adobe and shardrock walls were torched to cinder black. Threadbare pennants and embroidered banner-rolls, drilled through by small-arms fire, were still yet mounted above the guardhouses and battle-wracked armoury. Carrion had had their play with the dead; no one slain had been laid out for proper burial honours. Magpies danced out from under the keval’s steelshod hooves, Cato battling the rise in his gorge. From pain as much as offended propriety.

“Iteki,” He glowered. “Hut’uun savages.”

An aruetii could be forgiven a lack of manners and decorum. Mando’ade, he thought, could not be so readily excused. Contempt was an easy toxin that chipped at discipline and rendered good warcraft habits spoiled. He reined the keval, spurring its gait a mote faster, cantering under the barbican arch. Ash and cooked marrow stirred ‘neath the mount’s heels. Winds carried a fine dust off the fragmented parapets, coating Cato tan. He blinked and spotted a figure framed up between bands of long shadow and the harsh light of the inner courtyard.

“Master Vale?” He called. He stepped down from the saddle, after pacing to a dead stop, pulling leather tarpaulin off a heavy war-chest roped and knotted to the keval’s duraplast hind. Battled against wincing; raw hurts wracked up the bones in his forearms.

-

The ‘imperials’ were expert. The six hammered pressure down on every line of ingress into Cato’s stance, challenging his guard to weaken. Short-swords hooked in, battling to cut-and-draw, glancing him with short but nerve-fine wounds that sped pain through his wits. His longsword kept up its ward, utilizing reach and patience over frenzied kata’s winding and thrusting at his bare shirt. The 2nd hatchetman scored a deep wick opening up the flesh just behind his knee. The 4th used a moment’s disorder and poked into his shoulder, inflicting shallow damage. The 6th flexed his crushgaunts, still attempting to wade close enough to break Cato’s blade out of his hands.

Cato’d drawn both swords, choking his grip up tightly under the narrow tsuba guards. His frame flicked, tapping through counter-offensive gestures, swords cocking as the angles and motion reversed or charged, harrying anything that wandered into his range exposed. 3rd he parried and slew, halving his heart and rib-cage. Turned, clocking 5th over the bridge of his nose with a mean slam-punch that left him stinging and teary. The 4th tried skewering him through the back of a kidney. Cato pirouetted, taking a cut that slid across his back, bringing his swords down in a hard, curt diagonal blow. 4th peeled away in two.

Others fell. Or retreated. Cato took issue with the 6th. The hatchetman had a death-clutch on his tunic and refused every dissuasion, wrenching a free gauntlet back to coil a killing punch. Cato seemed to unfurl; left hand clasped around the offending wrist, right arm jabbing up that snapped a stunning, flat hook across 6th’s jaw and armoured cheek, rebounding with a second oar-hand strike. 6th’s grip loosened and fell open involuntarily. Cato spun out his foe’s arm, trapping it over his shoulder, kicking out 6th’s knee and calve. Fifteen stone of armoured weight crashed to the bay flooring.

A short tanto transected through the meat of a now unguarded throat. Cato staggered away, blood hanging in bright draughts down his shoulder blades.

-

“Pardon my lateness,” He bowed over his waist, eyes still locked on Daymon. “There were several rude delays. I’d meant to have an afternoon prepared for your arrival.”

Balls of loose thorn-weed bounced in and out of shade. A vulture spied them atop the soot of the barbican, picking idly at spring-heeled rat stuck in its talons. Scents of broiling fat and blood still clung to the flagstones. “I trust my missive wasn’t too alarming?” He indicated Daymon’s arsenal.

[member="Daymon Vale"]

 

[Julius Sedaire]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7G8QItjTSDA​

​

Brief flashes of a gruff, stubbled face with amber eyes of a hawk grinning down at him, and handing him a tri-sided knife. Any son of his would never be unarmed, and it was made of a special metal that he would learn about when he was older, but he mustn't tell his mother. One of the few memories he had of his father. One he would deny he had if questioned, but he remembered that, and being taught the parts of a gun as the distant man showed rare affection in having his son sit and watch him clean the custom pieces.

Emotion welled in Daymon for a moment, and he looked at the battered figure without words, eyes painful and distant. Before he spoke he reached into a pouch at his waist and tossed a cylinder at the man. Quick acting bacta syrette. It was combined with an analgesic that would ease his obvious pain. After a moments time spent thinking, he tore the entire pouch off by its buckle release and tossed it to the other armored figure, noting the swords so similar to the ones his father wore. And the heavy chest, which brought fear and a lump in his throat he quickly swallowed and surpressed as he met the visored gaze.

"Use that. I have plenty to spare, and something tells me you need it more than me. It'll start the healing process, and knock out most of the pain. All the goons I ran into backed off when I mentioned I worked for the Cartels and would make sure they never worked for my boss again. You weren't so lucky, it seems."

Taking a swig from the thermos he pulled out of an olive drab sack, he shook it as well, and left it on a crumbling sculpture between them, nodding to it. The aroma wafting from it was heady, dark, and potent. And steam filtered up from the depths as well, the top forming a neat durasteel cup with which one could pour contents into and drink from.

"Good strong caff there too, if you have a taste. Socorran blend, heavy stuff, but it will help fight fatigue. We drank it in the Alliance on long drop missions to stay awake in the field... Now tell me... No disrespect... Who are you, and what is this for? And if it's about the deadbeat that was my dad, why should I care?"

Direct. To the point. Said with an edge and a scowl that was the twin of the one bore so often by the man he showed such scorn for in the moment.

[member="Cato Fett"]

 

[Cato Fett]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4hAOlv-Jws4​

Cato stuck the inside of his elbow with the syrette needle and pushed along the tubing. The analgesic element found his bloodstream and rowed up past his shoulder ball, numbing the edge of pain with glacial cold. He fed a second tube into his skin, taking care not to jam in on the roll, battling temporary drowsy effects that threatened his faculties with a slur. The day’s heat was penetrating. Gelatinous sweat clung to his backside in heavy globules, sliding to his waistband whenever he shifted. Cato exhaled and reconstituted his focus; the thread of Manda, of tao and ki, undercurrent of soulful power that tuned him to geomantic providences. Sluggishness was minimized, if not outright expelled. Crystalline light winked off his black-on-black visor.

“I am Cato,” He answered, adding: “Clan Fett. Bounty killer by trade. …Exile by choice. Now both arbiter and executor of your father’s personal estate, at his request. He bade me to oversee his death. All that remains is to confer over your inheritance.”

The weighted chest. Standard ship-borne footlocker with personal additions, replaced hinges, reinforced locking mechanism of a personal design, scrawled in etched typing stamped by a smith’s brand, and coloured to Mereel livery patterns. Cato knelt, selecting a heavy twist of forged iron out of a belt satchel, fitting it to the keyhole. The lid swung up. Within, on carefully rolled and tailored velvet, laid a compact selection of weaponry and armour. High-powered pistols, a throaty shotgun, a custom battle rifle laden with aftermarket modules that were obviously of unique craftmanship, a weighted traditional besk’ad, so honed the air sang off its edge. Cato pried a peculiar necklace piece by its chain and held it out for Daymon.

“…I’m not qualified to speak on your father’s behalf. We met just briefly and only for his singular need. I’m honour-bound, however, to fulfill his request. You may either accept or reject your father’s karma, such is your right. He’ll most certainly be haunted into his next life. I just advise… care,” He put with tact, in his peculiar accent. “Against rashness. Against contempt. Take care. …Your father was Mandalorian. Died Mandalorian. No man willing to let his head roll bequeaths anything lightly.”

[member="Daymon Vale"]

 

[Julius Sedaire]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWDYAJ2-Y1E​

Oversee his death? So the deadbeat had finally had his deeds caught up to him? For a moment Daymon eyed the necklace, straining to remember anything about his father other than being a gun for hire. Even him being a Mandalorian was something newly discovered to him, and he took the necklace almost mutely, turning it over in his hands. Cold eyes with the coloring of his mother but the hawk-glare of his father studied the skull branded on it, and for a long moment, he remained silent. Eventually his gaze came up from the necklace, and he approached the crate, a mixture of distaste and reverence warring on his face.

Reaching up, gloved and armored hands grasped first one pistol then the other, hefting the DE-10 from their rests in the footlocker and raising them to eye level. Weight was tested by jogging his hands up and down, and then a change came over in his eyes. Fast as silk over water, the guns spun and leveled, arms snapping out, and an echoing twang barked from first one then the other and back again, red bolts streaking out and carving furrows in the stone and durasteel of a building down the street. A satisfied and impressed look came over him, and he spun the pistols in reverse, grip loosening as he eyed the other pieces.

The shotgun he seemed impressed by, running his hands over it slowly, but not hefting it. Even from a distant glance, it was obvious the thing was a work of engineering not meant to be tested as he had the sidearms. A faint under the breath muttering could be heard, just barely caught as appraisal of the weapon, discussing components and settings to himself. The rifle was admired, but to tell the truth it was outside his expertise really. The thing seemed excessively capable, and there was such a sign of caring use and maintenance that told him it and the pistols saw the most use.

The beskad . This thing he could faintly recall on his fathers hips, and for a moment fingers hovered above it, hesitating. Then they retreated, and armored covers were pulled off, showing bare hands with the callouses and knicks of a career soldier, brawler, and general hard-luck warrior. a hand trace the plain blade, not knowing that everything from the pattern of the beskar folding to the very color and shape of the metal and blade were signatures of his fathers craft. Not knowing that belting it on would show to any mandalorian of discerning taste in such items that he bore a blade made by the Iron Father.

Gaze finally turned up to Cato, and he spoke in a whisper that still carried the slightest of scorn, softened by an almost boyish need.

"Who was he?"

[member="Cato Fett"]