The Dread of Something After Death...

[Kaden Farr]

One moment Kaden's hand was on the massive stone gate and the next it was not. Dathomir was no longer in sight. Kaden had no idea where he was, nor why he was alone. [member="Yasha Mantis"] had been with him when he left, and they had been followed by [member="Shia Kryze"]. The mist rose and consumed the dark environment began to shift. The fog began to take shape, one Kaden had not seen in so long. At first he did not recognize the form or face in front of him. The background began to change around this form. A small home came into view with a strong farmer walking through the door. Many people soon flitted into view, but only one shape seemed to notice Kaden was there.

She looked at him with longing. Kaden knew he should know her, but did not know why, not until she spoke.

"My little Kaden..."

The voice, he hadn't heard it in so long, but it was unmistakable. A single tear fell from the corner of his right eye and slipped down his cheek. As the drop hit the ground everything else around the woman was gone. It rippled away, leaving only the woman who Kaden knew was his mother.

He ran to her. The young teenager hugged the ghost. He expected her to disappear, but she was solid, as real as he was. His dark eyes looked up to her.

"Mama..." he said as he gripped her tight. "It's really you... does this mean..."

"No, you aren't dead, but you are in the Netherworld, and how long you are here, that's up to you..."

"Where... where am I...?"

Kaden looked over his shoulder and noticed a distant light. It called to him, pulled at him, yet the urge to stay with his mother also strong. She didn't answer his question, just turned and motioned for him to follow. As she walked forward the vision of his childhood home came back into view along with his father. There was a smile on the man's face, he was looking at him now.

The young teenager gave him the same greeting his mother had gotten.

"I have so much to tell you... you have to hear about Yasha, and Silas, and Narir... all my friends and the war..."

Kaden followed them into the house slowly forgetting that he had not been alone when he arrived, and that he needed to find Yasha and Shia. They were in Sinner's Rue as well, but they were no longer together. This place would try to hold them all, and they would have to break free. They had to find each other.

 

[Yasha Cadera]

The scream which began and ended Yasha Mantis’ world was the inhuman bellow of a breaking spirit, shattered beyond recognition at a single girl’s handprint on stone.

[member="Preliat Mantis"]’ scream was as devastating as the jarring realization that [member="Kaden Mantis"] and [member="Shia Kryze"] went through the Warlock Gate…

But Yasha had not. She gasped and slapped her hand on the Gate, but no sigils illuminated for the little rekr. Grunting and doffing her crushgaunts, Yasha slapped her hands on the Gate again, and again, slipping to the other side of it, touching there, anywhere she could…

“No, no, no, no, no, no, NO!” Yasha’s voice grew to a frantic scream, yet she could not hear it. “NO! KADEN! SHIA!!”

“EMBER YOU PROMISED!!!!” Yasha screeched and pounded at the Warlock Gate, as the laughter of a child broke across the area above it.

“Silly billy. Dead things don’t go through.” The child giggled and flung off the Gate backward.

“Hey! Wait!” Yasha yelled, rushing the other side of the Gate to see not a small child with raven hair and olive skin, but her father screaming in utter horror as atom by atom he shattered and fell to the raging insanity, which plagued him since the Dark Harvest.

Preliat Mantis always cobbled some form of sanity together from the patchwork of his mind. This time… this time Yasha realized there was no salvation for the screaming father.

“Daddy… Daddy! DADDY!!!” Yasha rushed to him, sliding on her knees to take his face in her hands. “Daddy, I’m here! I’m here, Daddy! You didn’t lose me, Daddy. DADDY!!!”

The men holding Preliat down were straining at him, as the uncanny beast of an Epicanthix man surged past, [member="Malika Mantis"] roaring in her wolf form to dislodge her brother-in-law.

“DADDY NO!!!” Preliat Mantis surged for the Gate. He could not lose his daughter. Not his only child. His crushgaunt touched the Gate.

He was gone.

Yasha pounded on the Gate until her hands blistered and bled. Behind her, the youth who attacked [member="Silas Mantis"] had a clear shot. Yasha swerved to tackle him, but the boy… he was too fast. Silas went down in a splash of crimson.

Malika pounced for the Dathomiri boy, yet a well placed shot down her throat caused the Shi’i do to flop over, a ragged bundle of 200 year old flesh. Yasha screamed, but no one heard her. She struggled, but fast arms held her down. Black.

MandalMotors. @Gil Skirata fought Ra Vizsla, and the Tal’Rekr surged for Mia Monroe.

“Yasha.” Silas said, having knocked a Mando’ad off balance. Yasha watched her tiny child body sprint and scream, her tomahawk slashing down on the man’s body, beskad stabbing into his flesh as she climbed to his head and sent her tomahawk down into his face again and again and again and again.

It was this man who held her back from saving Silas and Malika. The last time Yasha approached Sinner’s Rue, she was a child of 6 years, whose only true moment of infamy was surviving so long in Hell. The road to the Warlock Gate opened to her… a child conquered Sinner’s Rue with nary a tear shed.

The light stung her eyes, and she ignored it. ​

Little did she know until later that her ocular abnormality saved her from a fate of constant and cyclical torment. Black.

The man’s body disintegrated into a field of red. Kaine Zambrano tilted her chin and smiled. “Wiss kami, seddsi koybudil (Well done, little daughter).”

Mandalorians lied tangled on the ground in piles. Yasha stood with tears painted red down her face, a young man with Zambrano’s jaw and pale skin standing beside her, his arm around her waist. He smiled like a nexu at the little rekr… his prey. Yasha opened her mouth to speak, to challenge the battle which brought her to blood against her vode, but the more she tried to speak, the less sound exited her mouth.

The light stung her eyes, and she ignored it. ​

Preliat’s daughter twisted and kicked off the corpses, yanked herself out of the Sithling’s hands and ran, sometimes crawling, into the black…

“Yasha” Ra’s mouth moved, yet no sound comforted her ears. “Dar’manda… I will kill you and display your body as I did Katlaydr. You… Cursed… Thing. Mother of a wicked generation.”

Clutching her bloody knuckles, Yasha pleaded with Ra to stop his onslaught, to take mercy on her, to carry her to safety before he caught her. To see that she wasn’t Dar’manda… Pain rocked across his face as he levelled his spear at her neck. Yasha crashed to her knees and bellowed…

Ra went tumbling backward. Back, into Monroe’s hands. As she ripped him apart, she tossed his body into the volcano,

which triggered the cataclysm, ​

which sent Manda’yaim into chaos, ​

​

which killed…

… her mother.​

Yasha collapsed and curled into a ball.

The light stung her eyes, and she shut them. ​

The heat burned her side, so she crawled, pulling bruised legs behind her. She dug in the bog and the silt to alleviate the pressure filling her stomach, roiling under her skin.

Kaden. Shia… ​

​

She abandoned them.​

​

"Moooooooommy."​

​

"Mooooooooooooooooooommyyyy."​

​

"Mommy, where are you? Daddy wants you baaaaaaaack. Come back to Dromund Kaas, Mooommmy."​

​

A child's flashlight searched across her body, flickering with a mythosaur crest in the beam. The boy's face had his jaw, Yasha's lips and her mother's eyes... Kaine's eyes.

"Mooooooooooooooooommmmyyyyyyy."​

​

The light stung her eyes, and she shut them.​

 

[Shia Kryze]

Feet first into hell.

She'd missed, the others were gone. The endless plain stretched out before her, far, far worse than she'd ever imagined.

The warrior fell and rolled to her feet, expecting to be attacked at any moment.

She was shocked to see the face of Ra, smiling in welcome as he extended a hand.
"Well done my child, you have set her upon the path!"

"I...?" The words caught in her throat, she was not complicit in his atrocities.

"Do not lie to yourself, Shia. You have been with me since the beginning, since you chose to aid me - you have always been loyal to Mandalore. Together, we will cure the Force from this galaxy."

"No, no, I... do what I am commanded, because..."

"Because you want to. Because you follow orders. Point to me in the Resol'nare where it says you must obey my every command? Ignore what the Cuir Rekr say - those lapdogs do as I wish. They have no authority over the clans. No authority over you. All I can do is call you to aid me. You chose to join the Crusade."

Ra's smile encompassed the world, swallowing Shia whole, his voice echoing through her screamed denials.

"Just following orders is a fool's excuse 'Protector'."

The faces of the few as they huddled into the great iron temples to some obscene goal of the Sith - and she knew it was the Sith, she did not need confirmation, not here, alone with her own guilt - the tears and screams, the clean caustic white rooms where the force was 'cured' from people. While in streets and towns outside, families starved from lack of food.

The raids - families and towns wiped out, their property stolen to 'rebuild' Mandalore.

Herself at the head of the first raid she'd lead after the battle with the First Order. She tripped over the body of a young child, the only casulty, she remembered. She'd been so proud to limit the damage.

"Why me?" The broken lips of the corpse asked.

Shia had no answer - what answer was there? She was trying? How did that help? She shook her head, mute and numb as she tried to justify her actions.

"I'm sorry." She whispered.

"Sorry?" The corpse wrapped its hands around her neck, squeezing the life out of her throat, drowning her in blackness. "What does sorry mean, Shia Kryze? I am dead now. All that I will be one with the Force. Except you don't believe that, do you? I am not one of yours, so my soul goes to hell."

Even as she began to pass out, the corpse tilted her gaze upwards. "Well here I am, and here you are. Much worse than a pretty word, isn't it?"

A tiny voice echoed in the back of her brain. You have a duty. Shia. Get up. Shia. Walk. Shia. Find her.

Find her.​

​

Find her.​

​

Find her.​

Her throat raw from sobbing, barely able to see past the tears and the pain, Shia pushed aside the nightmare - embraced it, in it's way, then started to walk.​

 

[Kaden Farr]

Kaden found himself at a table. It was full of food. His stomach growled.

Yasha had told him stories of Sinner's Rue, the tricks it played and the unpleasant torture of the mind which ruled the place. Kaden experienced none of that. He had everything he had ever dreamed of since being orphaned, his parents were back. Turning to look out the window Kaden could still see the bright light.

"What are you looking at, Kaden," his father asked him.

"Oh nothing... just..."

It was odd. Yasha was not there, but he had been holding her hand. [member="Shia Kryze"] came through with them, but she was nowhere to be seen. Why couldn't he see them. Was this part of the games?

Kaden's stomach growled again, and he looked at the table. The food made him forget about Shia.

"I don't remember..."

He reached for the bread and took a bite. It tasted like ash... he spit out, and his mother looked at him with a disapproving look.

"I worked hard all day to make that for you... you need to eat it... all of it."

He shook his head. Kaden had never eaten anything so bad in his life. It was worse than that time when he and Yasha bit into a ten year old ration bar.

"YASHA!"

His parents looked at him.

No matter what Kaden forgot, he could not forget his Yasha. He had had made a promise. Kaden was breaking his promise.

"I can't stay... I made a promise... I have to..."

Everything came back to mind. Kaden was not going to find his real parents in Sinner's Rue. They were a shadow. Yasha, she was somewhere. Maybe she would hear him if he went looking for her.

"Whatever you do Kaden, don't go to the light... run away from it."

Kaden bolted out the door and ran in the opposite direction from the light.

"Yasha! YASHA!"

He called her name as he kept running. The further from his house he ran, the more of his memory returned. Suddenly everything went dark, and Kaden found himself on a dirt road.

"YAHSA!!! SHIA!!! WHERE ARE YOU!?!?!?"

[member="Yasha Mantis"]

 

[Yasha Cadera]

The voice calling [member="Shia Kryze"] to her duty of finding Yasha was but an echo of a memory in [member="Kaden Mantis"]’ mind.

​

Yes, find her.​

​

FIND HER.​

​

Get her out.​

​

Release the Netherworld from the Hell Wolf. ​

She did not belong in the Netherworld, she who Chaos expelled. There was a power of fate on Yasha Mantis, a terrible conundrum of a living being first thrown by Chaos itself into the Netherworld, then upended by its’ stomach, which would not contain her.

Sinner’s Rue threw every ounce of torture and torment at Yasha. She did not belong here.

Get out.​

​

Find her. ​

​

Get her out.​

The light stung her eyes, and she shut them. ​

​

Yasha lived in silence. ​

Inside, Yasha was screaming. The deaths of the Witches of Dathomir began a surge, which caused the most wicked of alliances to be strengthened and bond broken by no accord. The deaths of the Liberator’s conspirators marred any chance of returning home.

Ra was gone. ​

​

There was no one left.​

​

The light stung her eyes, and she ignored it.​

Yasha walked to the end of the palace porch, and let herself fall off the side. Her body crushed beneath the weight of the bones piling upon her.

“Wiss kami, seddsi koybudil.”* The hand of the Dark Lord waving over her, pulling her soul from her body.

Another clone. A different dress. ​

​

Dance, child of hell and wolf. Dance for your King.​

Yasha danced until her feet bled, like her hands bled, like her stomach bled. She danced for each breath taken from one who died under her hand or command. Her mother drove her on. Her mother’s eyes…

Kaine’s eyes… black on red on black.

“Yasha! YASHA!”​

​

Feet pounding against the soot. ​

​

“YASHA!!! SHIA!!! WHERE ARE YOU!?!?!?”​

​

"KADEN!"​

The bones of the dead mounted into a grotesque beast to devour her. Yasha squared up and rose to fight it, but her armour was gone. She had nothing in her arms but an infant.

The light stung her eyes and she shut them. ​

The bones swelled upon her, laced with her father’s scream. They clung to her skin, her dress and her body, as he returned.

He was not gentle, but was kind.

Yasha ran until she collapsed, wounds on her palms, her neck, her feet and her stomach pouring, as nothing healed in Sinner’s Rue. If Kaden reached her now, he could touch her, hold and comfort her. Yasha collapsed on the road.

The light stung her eyes, and she shut them.

*"Well done, little daughter."​

 

[Shia Kryze]

(music)​

Hell is just a word.​

​

The reality is much worse.​

Never go towards the light. Where was the light? Shia couldn't see anything but the hellscape that surrounded her.

"Failure." Her ancestors whispered, pointing to the endless sea of corpses at her feet. "Murderer. Sith-slave."

A choking sob wrenched at her throat. Where? She stumbled on a corpse, landing to see the face of her sister, staring sightlessly up at her, the brand of a Force User burnt into her forehead.

"WE WILL PURGE THE GALAXY! THE FORCE IS A SICKNESS, WE ARE THE CURE!"

Her own voice screaming the battle cry of the crusade, she felt her hand grip something hard - a branding iron. Her sisters eyes snapped open, then Shia was wrestling the other woman to the ground, unable to ignore the pleas and sobs, begging for forgiveness, for freedom. The horrible smell of burning flesh.

The consequence of all her actions. This was her fault.

That was it.

Find her!​

​

If the light is a lie and there is no light... then the only way through is in.

She wrenched herself free of the corpse of her sister, staggering to her feet to find herself on a battlefield.

"Katlayor!" A warrior called to her. "We have breached the walls of the Jedi compound, what should we do?"

Find her!​

​

This is not me. "Wipe them out, all of them." A pause. "Make sure you account for them all, the cleansing must be complete."

This is me. But this is not me. I cannot be punished for what I have not done, only for what I have done. I am not dead.

There, a road in the middle of the battlefield, with a figure on it... a pair of figures? She wrenched her buy'ce off to vomit at the scent of death and corruption that surrounded her. When her head came back up the figure was clearer, a woman - a girl really, wrapped up into a ball.

Shia stepped over the last corpse, past the last blaster bolt and out into the dust-covered plain and the long, empty road. The figure seemed so far away, so close to the light. Shia had no choice but to shield her eyes and look away.

"Yasha! Yasha honey, you have to look away, ner vod. You have to come back!"

[member="Yasha Mantis"] [member="Kaden Mantis"]

 

[Kaden Farr]

No sooner had Kaden found himself screaming on the dark road for Yasha, that everything changed again. His head hung as he thought he’d beaten the trial and escaped. Instead Sinner’s Rue found the one thing which could torment him most.

Kaden could see Yasha. He could see her trial. Her screams and the muffled noises she made pierced his ears like knives. He ran toward her only to collide with the image like a wall. There was a man, a face that that would forever haunt Kaden as it would be the owner of Yasha’s torture and torment. His fists pounded on the barrier, curses flew from his mouth. Nothing budged, nothing gave way.

The teenager fell to his knees and began to sob uncontrollably as his worst fear had become his reality. Kaden couldn’t keep his promise. He had followed her into the very place she hated most to protect her, to see her find her way out when it was time, and he was powerless to break through to her.

He screamed.

”YASHA!!!”

There was no response, nothing to indicate he could be heard.

Still Kaden beat the barrier. He ripped his basked from its sheath and beat and beat and beat against the barrier to no avail.

”YASHA!!!”

There had to be a crack. Kaden didn’t stop. Blisters formed on his hands, but he wouldn’t stop. His cry came in the form of a promise to Sinner’s Rue.

”I will win. I will defeat you. Nothing will keep me from saving her. You hear me!? NOT EVEN HELL ITSELF WILL STOP ME. BREAK AGAINST MY WILL!!!!”

Kaden screamed and shouted as if it would make Yasha hear him. Suddenly...






A crack.

[member="Yasha Mantis"] [member="Shia Kryze"]

 

[Yasha Cadera]

“… have to look away ner vod. You have to come back!”

“YASHA!!”​

The throng of fists against a barrier. The bashing continued, over and over, a clanging sound drilling so far through Yasha’s skull, she could no longer hear him.

“Shia…” Yasha grunted, rolling to her hands and knees, staggering to her bare feet. “Shia!?”

“Who’s Shia, darling?” He picked her up, cradling Yasha in his arms, carrying her back to the garden, where a balmy sun bathed the trio in a brilliant and glorious light.

“Shia?” Yasha grunted and struggled to get out of his arms, fighting the slicing pain across her wounded hands, feet and stomach.

Clang.​

​

Clang.​

“YASHA!!!”​

Her feet buckled as she slunk from HIS arms. Her palms radiated with a shock of pain as she caught herself before her face hit the duracrete of the solarium.

“Mommy?” The boy looked up with Aditya’s eyes… Kaine’s eyes. Black hair and Epicanthix folded eyelids peered up at his mother. “Mommy, you’re ouchie.”

The light stung her eyes, and she shut them.

“Mommy…. mommy, ouchie.” The boy knelt on the duracrete, pulling his favourite blanket from a bench and began bundling up his mother’s hands. “Mommy? Mommy, bad wrong?”

Yasha’s eyes cracked open to see the boy. She mouthed words, but no sound came out. The boy scampered away and returned with a large ginko leaf from a tree. He held the leaf over his mother’s eyes, and curled up between her arms. “Mommy? Mommy, I care you. Eli take care you now.”

Hell in a pair of childish arms. Another generation of Mantis children caring for their parents. Another layer of self-destruction.

Zambrano’s skin, and eyes and chin. Yasha began to sob from pain and blood loss, and the urge to above all, hold her child. The Hell Child. he scooped them up, mother and child. He took her to her bed to heal her.

CRACK.​

“Kaden.” Yasha’s voice peppered the two syllables of her lifeblood in a definitive whisper.

“Kaden!” Yasha’s dress tore as she rolled to her knees, screaming at the slicing pain in her palms. She heaved with torn and cut abdominal muscles as he held the boy and his ginko leaf.

“Mommy?”

Her feet stung and burned as she staggered away from him and their child, as she pulled her hands to her thighs before she crashed back down.

“MOMMY!!!!” The child screamed, arms flung out for his mother. The look of dawning betrayal on his face was one Yasha could never, would never forget. Her lip wobbled as she pulled as close to standing as she could.

The crack… Yasha whirled around directly at the light, planted her feet and screamed. The scream was bestial, a shockwave which radiated throughout Sinner’s Rue. The vision snapped and crumbled, filtering down to nothing but [member="Shia Kryze"], [member="Kaden Mantis"] and the road.

Yasha was once again draped in her Beskar’gam. One hand clung to her stomach, as she gasped and grunted and staggered toward Kaden. Nothing mattered. Not the light beckoning to her burning eyes, not the child who called her name.

The light stung her eyes, and she ignored it. ​

The road blurred in her eyes, as she collapsed to the red earth. Shia called to her, Yasha pulled off her buy’ce and it rolled to Shia’s feet. Kaden’s arms caught her and she collapsed once again and sobbed.

The helmet at Shia’s feet, once touched, would give Shia a complete vision of everything Yasha experienced in Sinner’s Rue. Every moment.

“Plains…” Yasha croaked. “Blood plains.” Pointing down the hell road, Yasha’s eyes squinted and blinked.

A child on the road.

“Moooooooooommy”​

​

“Mmooooooooooooommmmyyyyy.” ​

​

“Who’re they, Mommy?”​

Yasha’s olive skin paled. She panted and clutched at her stomach, which was flat and whole. Her feet, which moments before were blistered and cut open failed her. Her fingers were clumsy, covered in metal and armourweave.

“Welcome home. You’re screwed… go back. Go through the Gate, Shia… Kaden, it only get worse from here.” Amber eyes lost focus. Yasha tried to stumble forward, but she had yet to breathe and recover at all from her experience in the Rue. “Go back… I’ve got this.”

Sobbing tears streamed down Yasha’s face, as she pushed off Kaden’s chest. “Go, Kaden! Go!”

“Mommy! Mommy, I got you mommy!” The boy ran for the trio, bumping up against Shia.

…. he was real. Yasha whimpered, and her knees cut out from under her.

 

[Kaden Farr]

Kaden roared with the sound of a victorious lion. Kaden Mantis, destroyer of hell, had managed what lowly no one before him had managed. He broke Sinner’s Rue. Whether it was for a moment, or for a lifetime, that was yet to be determined. All Laden cared about was he saved Yasha from whatever torment Sinner’s Rue has put her through. He would always be there to save her.

”I’ve got you,” Kaden said as Yasha fell into his arms. Her armor made her heavy, but Kaden would always be strong for her. His arms burned the longer his muscles had to support his weight and hers, but she would always be able to stand as long as he was there.

He couldn’t say anything else. Kaden had seen enough of her torture to know what had happened. The silence which followed his own affirmation of having her in his arms was heavy. He didn’t know how to help her with this. All he could do was keep her moving forward, so that’s what he did. The Blood Plains were ahead of them.

A boy appeared, calling Yasha mommy. Kaden frowned. Was Sinner’s Rue taunting him now. Had he allowed part of Yasha’s torture to escape? Kaden stared at the boy.

Yasha spoke. She wanted them to leave. Kaden forced Yasha to look at him.

”Hell no,” he said as he shook his head. ”I made you a promise [member="Yasha Mantis"]. I will always have your back. I followed you here to keep that promise, and no matter what this place throws at us, I’m not leaving. There is nothing in all of the Netherworld that could convince me to abandon you. Just look at what I did to Sinner’s Rue to get to you.”

Kaden was not leaving and the sooner Yasha accepted that, the sooner they could move on.

The boy moved, and Yasha’s legs gave out. Kaden scooped her up in his arms just as he did the day she had been shot. Kaden started to walk in the direction of the Blood Plains.

”[member="Shia Kryze"], grab her buy’ce and bring it along. We aren’t leaving her. Ignore the boy.”

 

[Yasha Cadera]

“Go… just go.” Yasha choked, curled into [member="Kaden Mantis"]’ arms. Her armour was heavy, made to defend her, made to grow with her. Her burden was heavier still. As heavy as planets of people who followed the Resol’nare. He had her.

Kaden would always have her. Scanning into his eyes, Yasha saw the resolve of a man, who would never surrender, nor remove his presence from the proximity they held to now. From the set of his jaw and the wicked burn in Kaden’s eyes, Yasha felt the utter shame of knowing he saw her in such a helpless and horrifying state. He saw her, when she shouldn’t have been seen.

It only meant one thing: the worst Hell both of them could experience was watching each other be helpless. Being incapable of standing beside one and the other. Hell was separation. It was the cognizance that Kaden saw Yasha helpless, incapable of defending herself, wounded. A paling face shut its’ eyes and turned to Kaden’s gaze. Yasha’s shivering fingers stroked his cheek, then flopped back down.

“Kaden… Sh-shia…”

Blood leaked from her hands and feet and stomach, seeping through her armour and dotting the ground. Wounds from Sinner’s Rue never healed. “Get away from the Rue.” Yasha croaked, slumping like a ragdoll. Slumping like she had when he held her, brought her to the garden and stroked calming balms on her wounds. Yet now it was Kaden carrying her through the Netherworld. Now the situation was as it should have been. Torture became reliance. They would never survive this without each other.

“But Mommy…. MOMMY!!!” The boy raced after Kaden and Yasha, ploughing into Kaden’s legs with the strength of a toddler barely capable of walking. He tried to scratch at Kaden’s legs, jumping up to reach for his ‘mother’s’ hand.

His fingers touched Yasha’s crushgaunt.

Yasha bucked in Kaden’s arms, tumbling out of them and down to the road. She gurgled as she pushed onto her elbows and knees.

“Mommy.” The boy flung his arms around Yasha’s neck, crying eyes burrowing into her shoulder. “Mommy, no leave Eli, Mommy. No leave… No leave…”

Yasha shook as her left hand trembled to hold the child, to let him cling to her, this was her son. Face twisted in anguish, Yasha broke into a series of sobs as she pushed to her knees, wrapped her arms around the boy and held him.

His touch burned like fire. She kissed his raven hair and watched her tears fall into it, trailing down to his forehead like lazy precipitates. A rough hand pulled at the boy’s collar, yanking him out of Yasha’s arms. He held his son, staring daggers at Kaden, at Yasha and Shia. Cradling his son in his arms, he walked back into the Sinner’s Rue, back into the light.

“No… no!” Yasha screamed, crawling and reaching back for the boy, for the… for…

“Don’t look at the light.” Yasha whispered, shivering as she craned her head away from the now screaming child and the man who walked him back… always back to the Rue.

Empty hands played on her knees, palm up. Yasha rocked back and forth from the pale and shivering blood loss of her wounds, lips dry and smacking. Forward.

Ever forward. Staggering back to her feet, Yasha stumbled into Kaden’s chest and pulled him forward.

Always forward.

The farther the trio got from Sinner’s Rue, the better Yasha’s wounds would become. “Don’t look off the road… Monsters… monsters will get… will get… ” She stopped staggering and pressed into Kaden’s body. He would carry her, or she would crawl.

 

[Kaden Farr]

Kaden did not stop or slow down. His back was turned to the boy. The child was evidence of a grievous sin which the Netherworld has performed against both he and Yasha. He knew it was all the Netherworld. This was real, but not real. The boy existed, but he did not exist. It was all a ruse to make them know what hell was. Hell was separarion, but was it more, and why was the boy still following them.

Looking over his shoulder, Kaden noticed Shia was not moving, she was stone and statue still.

”Shia... pick up the buy’ce and let’s move,”

Nothing, not even a foot of motion.

The boy ran, calling for Yasha. Kaden knew. He knew it was her son. The warrior could not think of the boy as a living person, a sentient being. Kaden felt the toddler grip his leg. He shook it off. Looking down, Kaden knocked the boy away with his boot.

”Shia!”

The ground shook, a wall sprung up from the ground. It was solid and black, yet transparent. Kaden ran back to see if he could see Shia, but she suddenly dissipated.

Yasha had fallen to grip the boy. She knew it was hers. Suddenly HE was there. Taking the boy, it was ripped from Yasha. Yasha wept, she cried as the boy was taken. As he took the boy, Kaden moved over to Yasha. He picked her up. She was mumbling something about monsters.

Kaden looked over his shoulder once more and he saw the light.

The light...

They were still in Sinner’s Rue, but yet they were together. If Kaden could crack one wall, shatter it, he could shatter another. He was about to set Yasha down when the wall vanished and their clothes changed. Yasha was once again in the torn clothes she had been in as he was forced to watch... a thing he didn’t want to remember but would never forget. Kaden was in torn clothes also. Yasha’s scars were his. Her wounds were his exact own. Was this the consequence of his promise? Had Kaden resignd himself to carrying her wounds and scars for the remainder of his life. His eyes looked over to Yasha. There were no wounds. She was healed, at least on the outside. Kaden carries the evidence of Yasha’s torture.

[member="Yasha Mantis"] [member="Shia Kryze"]

 

[Yasha Cadera]

Hell. What was it?

Curled in [member="Kaden Mantis"]’ arms, Yasha took a brief moment of respite. In these living arms, Yasha could rest.

It wasn’t much in the bloodstained wreck of the Netherworld, but it was sufficient. Her wounds evaporated, her armour gone. [member="Shia Kryze"] could see but not reach them, their protector had the struggle of a bodyguard out of range. Kaden’s leg shoved and kicked. Waves of panic clung to her side like cancer. Her son. How had she gotten old enough to carry him?

Kaden fell, the crimson on the road was no longer hers, yet it came from the same tandem heart. Diving for Kaden, Yasha pulled him into her arms, careful to keep his face from the light. Her shoulder provided the shadow. Raven hair pouring around her face and shoulders.

“Kaden! Kaden, look at me. Look at me.” Yasha turned his face from the light, rubbing her palms on his cheeks. “We’re in Sinner’s Rue.”

Hell was and was not each other. “We’re still in Sinner’s Rue... Okay. Okay we’re in the Rue.”

Freed from her bleeding wounds, Yasha had the presence of mind to process not the happenings of the Rue, but their place here.

“Okay... Okay.” She tore her dress, wrapping Kaden’s wounds in the cloth and holding steady. “... okay... okay.”

He trotted up, stepping lightly on the ground. “Yasha? Yasha darling! Eli says you were bleeding, he is quite overcome. I left him with his grandfather, sobbing. I hurt you... darling I didn’t want you to be in such pain, but you have to begin to be happy here... leave that bundle of ash to his commoner’s soot. Come to me.”

A hard hand wrenched open, reaching for Yasha’s shoulder. She whirled around and snapped, using the surprise to take him off balance. Kaden was bleeding. It was all Yasha needed to bite back. And bit she did. She bit and clawed and kicked, grabbing handfuls of raven hair and bashed.

And bashed.

And bashed.

The light stung her eyes, and she roared. And she cupped her hands in red, inhaled with every cubic inch of volume in her lungs, put her cupped hands to her lips... and blew as hard as she could.

The light bathed in red. ​

It fizzled and descended. Waned like the new moon in an eclipse. In the distance, two voices could be heard.

​

A boy crying for his mother, and the commanding basso quieting him. ​

Yasha grabbed Kaden and pulled his arm over her shoulders, tugging him along. “Keep your eyes closed.”

The road thinned to a path barely large enough for a single foot.

“Yasha! Yasha, why are you running from me?!”

Sliding Kaden to the road, Yasha held him until he arrived. Her heart fluttered, thrumming like the recoil of a mass driver firing rapid-shot as a legion of capital ships. Terror was as curious a sensation as Yasha’s determination to survive the Rue. They would overcome it.

The Netherworld’s mistake was taking Kaden with it.

“Heal him.” Yasha’s throat quaked. “Heal him!!”

​

The crimson shadow bathed her eyes, and she let it. ​

Yasha stuttered and gasped and wept. ​

Kaden’s wounds evaporated. Yasha and Kaden appeared near [member="Shia Kryze"] on the road. The Wolf’s Daughter wore her armour, curled into a ball on the path. Crawling to Kaden, she grabbed him, frantic to check his hands, his feet, his stomach.

“Wounds don’t heal in the Rue… and if wounds don’t heal then to keep his promise, he’d have to send you out of it… K-Kaden…” Yasha choked back a sob, trying to pull to her feet, to yank Kaden off the ground.

The urge to speak descended with the light’s final crossing of the horizon. “… Kaden, I never would have made it if... if you hadn't...”

Searching the road, the little wolf staggered to her feet, her hands still clinging to her best friend’s. “We have to make for the Plains… hurry. We have to keep moving."

In the distance, the scurrying sound of something unreal. "Shia... Shia, we have to move."

 

[Shia Kryze]

It only took a single brush of the fingertips for Shia to experience what Yasha had.

For the most part, it was actually almost comforting - someone else's nightmares are not your own, they're always easier to face, no matter how revolting.

But her nightmares of Kaine... there probably were not many people who wouldn't resonate with those. Shia wanted to claw at her own skin, rip it free from the bones to get the horrible, corrupting feeling of that touch, to tear a dress she wasn't even wearing off.

The world swam dangerously around her and for just a split second, she understood her peril - it would be so very easy to fall back into her own torment through someone elses.

But I am not dead. Not yet.

She took a single step forwards, to the others seeming to appear from nowhere or animate from nothing - even though she had somehow witnessed most of their conversation, or... elements of it, anyway. Reality was a little confused right now.

"You're right." She said, with a level clarity that defied belief - because it also defied sanity. "There's no time to stop here."

[member="Yasha Mantis"] [member="Kaden Mantis"]

 

[Kaden Farr]

”Yasha, NO!”

Kaden teacher for her arm. She was not going to go to him. This was not about happen. Yasha was putting herself in the arms of one who would torture her, take her like property, and display owenership rather than love. Why? For love, for protection, to keep Kaden from dying?

”There is another way. I can carry these wounds. Don’t go to HIM.”

It was too late. Yasha gave herself over to the villain, the son of perdition. Kaden pushed to his feet as he growled in a low and angry tone. There was a violence to the overture of the sound and it shone through his eyes. He could feel his heart harden. Beskar formed around it, cast it in a protective layer. They would not survive unless Kaden could push past how a thing made him felt. He knew and understood what he had to become. Yasha was destined to rule, to lead, and Kaden had to become her hardened hand. The one who would do whatever it took to get her on the throne, and then do whatever it would take to keep her on it.

He stepped toward the evil one. His eyes remained open. If Yasha had to experience it, Kaden had to see it. This was Hell, together and apart. They would suffer no matter the choices they made. Either was a sacrifice, but only one carried the promise of what they both had longed to share.

Suddenly they were with Shia, the real Shia.

What happened?

Kaden reached for Yasha as she explained why she had done what she had. He couldn’t say anything. His heart refused to break, and the only way it could was to remain coated in beskar. She pulled him from the ground, and he embraced her. Kaden held her for a moment, then turned to Shia. He reached to poke at her. A sigh of relief escaped his mouth to know she was really real.

”We have to reach the Blood Plains before we are drawn back in. I never want to go back there, not until I know how to destroy it.”

Destroy it he would. Kaden had decided there and then, one day he would step through the Warlock Gate and destroy Sinner’s Rue. It would pay for what it had made Yasha endure. This was his secret, the only one he would keep from his Haran’rekr.

[member="Yasha Mantis"] [member="Shia Kryze"]

 

[Yasha Cadera]

[member="Kaden Mantis"] reached for the Hell Wolf, touching her balled up and shivering hand. “No, Kaden… this is Sinner’s Rue. There is no other way. Close your eyes.”

The shaken voice commanded it, as in a flash Yasha realized her mother commanded similar moments… similar times, when she was too little a child to notice. Was this why her and Daddy fought? No… Aditya and Preliat loved each other with a ferocious and never yielding affection. As he dragged her into his calm, Yasha stuttered and fought against the instinct to cry out. His hands were warm. He held her, attempted to soothe and delight her.

Yasha didn’t start to sob until after she realized Kaden hadn’t closed his eyes. She reached for Kaden, nothing more than a hand twisting around. A deep shame shut Yasha’s eyes, until Kaden faded. Until the Rue was over.

Kaden’s arms became a bulwark against the Sinner’s Torment, a shield harder in proportion to anything she suffered within the worst of the Netherworld. Her arms shook as she held to him, unabashed in the momentary desire to be held. Yasha eyed [member="Shia Kryze"], pulling her gaze over as she caught a revulsion in the woman’s eyes. Had Yasha repulsed her now? Her legs shook as they made their way.

Her mind buzzed with images and sensations. Yasha stuttered and held back sobs. She was supposed to be the one who could handle this place. Hell was her home. If she didn’t keep bravery as her shield, the others would see a weak and feeble teenager, when they should have seen the strength and stomach of Togorians.

As she broke from Kaden’s arms, Yasha realized what the promise between them, given after her release from the hospital, legitimately meant. He had to survey damaged goods, but as she kept moving, Yasha knew with assurance that his eyes hardened only to protect her further. His arms gripped harder only to staunch the flow of emotional grief.

“Follow me... don’t look to the side, don’t step on anything wet.” If Kaden stood by her, if Shia stood by her, Yasha refused to let them fall. The myriad paths through the Netherworld’s network of false roads sunk into Yasha’s skin like the lotion of a memory. She ducked and covered, deked around what seemed like solid paths, took Shia and Kaden around monsters. All in silence. All acting on impulse and instinct without restraint.

This was the hell in which Yasha was thrown newly born, raised to an age far too young for a denizen of this place. Yet now the Netherworld felt dangerous, for Yasha understood life outside. Life in the sun, and the desert which only darkens the skin and does not lead to destruction. A change in the air. The pressure of it shifted.

“Hurry... we have to make the Pass...” Yasha unsheathed both Katar, and sprinted.

A collection of oil-like wings flapped in the darkness. The sound grew and grew until it was a fun so loud their armour shook. “Don’t look! Keep running! Run!!”

The sound of a creature soaring, making for the trio radiated into their skulls before they could see it. “Eyes down!! Follow the road!!!”

Yasha sprinted to the side and leapt. Her body disappeared as she roared, her katars stabbing into something with flesh and ash and fire. The beast combusted, crashing down to the road in front of Shia and Kaden.

It roared in agony, charging the Mandalorians as Yasha rolled. “Under the ribs!!! It’s breath is toxic! Don’t let it touch you!!” Yasha rushed to the side, climbing up its’ back to dig her katars above the muscle bundle beside both wings.

It would give the others a chance.

 

[Shia Kryze]

Now this was a hell Shia could get on well with.

Running? Check. Vicious monsters? Oh yes. Shia could cope with vicious monsters.

She screamed and leapt.

It was clear here time was of the essence, and before Shia was done in this place she'd learn a level of combat brutality in hand to hand combat that would shock most instructors. Her vambrace blades stabbed and hands groped for slick, wet, alien muscles, tearing to part the weaker (no one said anything about weak) ribcage to give Kaden a shot.

[member="Yasha Mantis"] [member="Kaden Mantis"]

 

[Kaden Farr]

Kaden could feel his strength returning with each passing step. The further they moved away from Sinner's Rue the stronger he became. His mind was still reeling over what Yasha and he had been through, but there was no time to let it process. He'd watch the most vile of things happen to her, watched as she allowed it to continue on order to save him. No, there was no amount of love anyone could claim to have above what Yasha had just shown.

Hell had bound them.

There was no time to dwell on this thought either, as suddenly they had a monster to deal with. Yasha knew what it was. She told them what to do. Under the ribs...

Shia went first, slicing it open underneath. Kaden followed taking one of his grenades off the bandoleer across his chest. He could not do this too many times, but right now he was done dealing with whatever Hell decided to throw at them. Kaden pulled the pin as he slid on his knees. Tossing the grenade into the cut Shia had made, he beckoned for Yasha to hurry. There would not be much time before the beast exploded.

"Hurry up Yasha!"

10...

9...

8...

7...

There was not much time indeed.

[member="Yasha Mantis"] [member="Shia Kryze"]

 

[Yasha Cadera]

Yasha was glad most of all for the katar attached to her gauntlets. They required no hold to remain in place, but the clench of her fists. Running off the back of the beast’s body, Yasha unclenched her fists and landed hard on her side on the road.

Her legs… after the Rue, Yasha’s legs had no strength left. Clenching her fists, she growled and scampered toward [member="Kaden Mantis"] and [member="Shia Kryze"]. Every inch burned like acid in the rain. Counting down in her head, she felt the rise in tension in her chest, when a bomb was about to go off.

6…

5…

4…

She was not going to make it far enough along the road in time. Yasha dropped and curled into as tight a ball as she could, back to the imminent explosion.

3… 2… 1…

kaFWOOOM​

The conflagration radiated out and upward, giving Shia and Kaden for the first time, a view of the magnitude of their predicament…

… the creature was one of thousands snapping their jaws along the road. Uncurling, Yasha scampered back to her feet and sprinted for all she was worth.

“RUN! HURRY!!”

In the distance, what looked like a lake of grey-green water veered off from the road. Yasha’s muscles faltered. She pitched herself down the sheer cliff, which turned into a slope, which turned into a wall, which turned gravity on its’ side. Attempting to hide the fatigue in her legs, Yasha rolled and ran across the back of a slumbering flame-beast, using its’ waking momentum to loft herself into the air, then come crashing down beside of all things, a house on stilts above the water, with a little rickety dock, and a tiny boat.

Yasha tumbled into the deck, and her back smashed against the solid wood door. It didn’t budge. She was on her hands and knees in a scant second, scanning the distance for her friends.

 

[Shia Kryze]

"You'll regret using those grenades, Kaden."

Shia remarked calmly as she rolled to her feet and lets be clear here - didn't stop running to look back, coming to a brief halt only when she remembered Yasha and Kaden had shorter legs and couldn't keep up with her adult stride.

That was when she saw what was following them and a warrior who thought she couldn't get anymore scared understood what 'my blood froze' truly meant.

"Go." She said to Kaden. "I'll catch up. I mean it, don't second guess."

Then she pulled the wrapped antique she'd grabbed on way into the Netherworld, a weapon she'd relentlessly avoided using until now. But down here, who was going to tell?

As the Darksaber ignited with the characteristic snap-hiss of a lightsaber, but with that added alien noise the blade made, Shia felt an undeniable thrill. She heard the words of her mentor: 'pick up a lightsaber, and one day you'll be the one fighting for your friends, your family, for the fate of whole worlds - that's what they're for.' Romantic words, but damn if the old drunk woman wasn't right.

She didn't know any of the defensive forms - she couldn't predict the future, which made them largely useless to her - but she knew enough of the basics, and of the cutting potential of a lightsaber to take up the rear as she ran, slashing out at wings and claws, generally severing them and discouraging the lead members of the howling pack from their tinned meal.

The world up ahead grew... distinctly non-linear, which didn't do her eyes any good at all. She supposed you got used to that, or had a psychotic episode. How would you know the difference?

She launched herself into the air on her jetpack (also a limited resource, she realised) just as the leading edge of the pack caught up with her, disappearing into it for a long second, before emerging in a shower of gore as she bisected one of the demons(?) and plummeted downwards like a comet to land, if not on the deck with style, then at least on the deck.

 

[Kaden Farr]

Shia was crazy if she thought Kaden was going to keep running without her. He blew the damn thing up, so he had t fix it. Why did he think that was going to work. On second thought could these creatures be killed. Wouldn’t cutting them in two just make two more? How did one kill these thing?

Yasha knew. Kaden looked for her, but couldn’t find her.

His eyes scanned the area until he saw a house on stilts. It was on a lake? How did Hell have a lake? Kaden was going to have to update the books on what Hell was, but first he had to find Yasha.

She was on the house. Well, on the deck. Shia could fight the monsters for now. Kaden had to make sure Yasha was safe. They needed her to get through this. She was their guide. Kaden knew he would not survive, not without Yasha. This was Hell, and Hell was feeling inadequate.

Kaden reached her. His boots somehow echoed across the water with all the other noise around them. He snatched Yasha up again.

”C’mon, we need you to tell us how to beat this thing. I can’t do it Yasha. I’m not good enough... I might fail you, but dammit I’m going to try.”

Shia wasn’t going to be happy that Kaden hasn’t listened to her.

[member="Yasha Mantis"] [member="Shia Kryze"]