To Pass Through The Fire: Mandalorian Dominion of Dathomir

[Shia Kryze]

(music)​

The blue light flickered and faded through the dank, cloaking fog that shrouded this awful place of pain and memory - a place billions had died for, a place hundreds had died for only hours, minutes before.

Minutes that were a lifetime for some.

Shia Kryze might be physically unchanged by her experience, at least compared to Kaden and Yasha, but no one who took one look in her eyes would ever doubt she had trodden the lands of the cursed dead and walked free without consequence, the flicker of... something in her amber eyes communicating an acceptance of something beautiful and terrible. That death is real, as is life beyond death.

Her beskar'gam was a wreck - shattered, fractured and held together with materials that could not be named in the mortal realms - materials that rapidly began to decay when exposed to living energies. Blood caked most of her exposed armour and skin - hers and others, demon, undead, sinner and sith alike. But her back was ramrod straight, walking with the confidence of someone who, if they had been broken (which she most surely must have been), had been reforged.

She took in the scene with a look of incredulity, her eyes squinted against even the diffuse light of Dathomir, she caught sight of the struggle, of her vode Yasha and of the unknown Mandalorian sprinting towards [member="Silas Mantis"].

The joyful cry that left her lips was utterly unlike the woman who had left moments before, more like the war howl of a banshee than the battle cry of a Mandalorian Protector, and she blurred into motion with a speed that made it seem almost as if she'd sensed the intruder before he broke through the outer perimeter.

"Kyr'am bah te aruetii!" She howled, her vambrace blades (her only remaining working weapons) snapping forward as she charged into the flank of Kade, taking advantage of his assault on a single target, and striking with brutal strength.

[member="Solar Energy Corporation"] [member="Yasha Mantis"] [member="Malika Mantis"] [member="Kaden Mantis"] [member="Teagan Stoirm"] [member="Silas Mantis"]​

 

[Ordo]

The Warlock gate had been quiet. The witches knew their place and had respected the rest of the dead. That was their way. The ancestors were something to be respected and learned from, not something you disturbed.

The big man felt awfully disturbed.

The gate rippled in front of him as he walked up to it. Echos of screams and anher washed over his senses and he pumped the action of his old CM-Fragstorm shotgun as he stepped forward. He had planned a restful afterlife. Mia, Ra, and whoever else the galaxy had wasted its time with these days were supposed to let him, but they couldn't could they? He didn't like that much.

He stepped through back to the nagging whinning karkstorm of a galaxy and took a hard look around.

"Who the Kark couldn't be bothered to stay off my lawn?" He said as his form coalesced and he picked the first body too close and took aim.

"Was it you, Dikut?"

 

[Ashin]

[member="Ordo"]

A cold wind swelled out from the runes on the Warlock's Gate - and was gone.

<<Go back to sleep, ba'buir,>> murmured the bodiless voice of Ashin Varanin, once of Clan Ordo, audible to anyone nearby. <<Dream of better days.>>

 

[Kaden Farr]

As soon as they had left, they had returned. As the fog dissipated Yasha was clearly exposed as a tall, young woman. Kaden had also returned as though he had been gone for nearly four years. It was because they had. Had it not been for Preliat’s sobbing they would never have found the point they had left. Kaden still had no idea how all of this had worked, he just knew one thing. He was never stepping foot into the Netherworld ever again.

For Kaden’s part he had also grown to full six foot and two inches. It was tall for his genetics, but it was not his height that would turn heads. Kaden was much bulkier than the scrawny fourteen year old which had left. His boots hit the ground, none of his clothes were the ones he had left in. The black beskar’gam had been pieced together during their time in the Netherworld. Loose pieces that fit were collected and the black pitch of the place was Kaden had to use as paint and seal.

[member="Silas Mantis"] was under attack. Shia went after the assailant as Kaden ran to intercept the attack. The axe was blocked by Kaden’s gauntlets. He’d managed to keep them and activated the hidden beskar blades as he cut through the handle.

<<< “No one tries to kill my buir,”>>> he said through his helmet. The metallic sound to his voice was due to an old

As long as Shia could handle Kade, Kaden would go to the one person he had wanted to see. He walked over to Silas and put a hand on the man’s shoulder.

<<< “I told you I’d come back to you...” >>>

[member="Solar Energy Corporation"] [member="Yasha Mantis"] [member="Malika Mantis"] [member="Shia Kryze"] [member="Teagan Stoirm"] [member="Preliat Mantis"]

 

[Ordo]

[member="Ashin"]

"This ain't right, Ad'ika." He said to the wind. He was angry, hurt, and disappointed beyond even death.

"I promised these people peace once. Bled the ground just there." He said pointing with the barrel of his shotgun, "There's no Mandalorians here. Just a bunch of armored thugs jockeying to see who can piss their honor away the fastest."

He shook his head and waved them all away as he turned back to the gate. He hated the thought of the galaxy in the hands of this generation.

"Backpedaling your mouths won't unpull a trigger. None of you have souls." He said as he put one foot back through the gate. "You're all Dar'manda here."

He left.

 

[Silas Mantis]

"You're grounded. For the record."

Silas didn't even try to fathom what had just occurred before his eyes, he didn't have time to question if he'd seen they eyes of his brother glow, or the fact that his boy and his niece had just come back some four years older, and that the former had just stopped an axe from dinging off of his buy'ce. God forbid the ghosts. He was starting to think he'd lost his mind to be honest. Nonetheless he rose up from the dust and faced down the challenger, placing an arm in front of [member="Kaden Mantis"] to keep him back, this was his to handle alone.

They had agreed to not kill any more of the witches, and so that would be honored. He was not going to kill the boy wielding the green saber. Silas rushed forward, bolting towards the vengeful boy with nothing but his bare hands, though it helped that one was made completely of beskar and had augmented strength behind it most no one could hope to match.

In an instant the gap was closed, and with his prosthetic he made an attempt to bash away Kade([member="Solar Energy Corporation"])'s lightsaber while his other hand shot towards his throat with blistering speed and attempted to slam the saber wielder into the dust. "I know you forcers think highly of destiny and such," He snarled in his attempt to put the boy on his back. "A dead man just came back to life and ensured that you get to walk way with your life." Silas continued.

"So surely your destiny isn't to run off and get yourself killed, is it?"

[member="Preliat Mantis"] | [member="Malika Mantis"] [member="Yasha Mantis"] | [member="Kaden Mantis"] | [member="Shia Kryze"] | Fething Dead People​

 

[Preliat Mantis]

Preliat blinked. It was her. But it wasn't her. It wasn't his daughter- at least. It wasn't his daughter in what he remembered. It was still her. But she was older. Hell. She'd gone back. She'd gone back with [member="Ember Rekali"]. To do what? To learn? To fight?

He blinked and stared for a while. He was at a loss for words. Preliat's blue eyes locked onto the warlock gate, the specters coming from it- and the desire to go through it. To touch it.

He looked up at Yasha, and fell to his knees. He looked around, and the men restraining him let go. Preliat reached up and wrapped his arms around his daughter's waist. He was a broken man at this point. He had suffered enough. He didn't want to suffer anymore. He didn't make any sounds, he didn't cry- he just silently wrapped his arms around one of the few things that mattered to him.

And he became statue-like, but said nothing.

[member="Yasha Mantis"] l [member="Ember Rekali"] l @Ordo​

 

[Yasha Cadera]

[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqZME0u3sco[/video]​

​

The journey back to and from the Netherworld came at a devastating cost. ​

​

Death himself, defeated. ​

​

Ramanar was a silent monument to the cost of all loss of life, Yasha’s never ending burden to carry in her heart. ​

“It’s been years for me, Daddy… Years where all I had was [member="Kaden Mantis"], [member="Shia Kryze"] and Mama… Mama, she… she’s ready to move on, but… Mama’s got that special kind of love, Daddy, and she’s waiting until you’re finished here. Don’t worry none, we found a good place for her, a safe place where she’s tinkering with tons of armour and gadgets and keeping her eyes peeled… give her another year and Mama’ll be running the place.” Yasha gasped with a cathartic laugh as her father [member="Preliat Mantis"]’s drone-like silence caused her eyes to sting and swell and leak salt water to the Dathomiri bog. She searched for [member="Malika Mantis"], for reassurance or for comfort - Yasha didn't know.

A few precious seconds were all it took to shatter one of the Galaxy’s strongest men, and as her kneeling father wrapped his arms around her waist, Yasha hugged him as close as she could, running her hand up to stroke his shoulder. The Mando'ade around them gave a wide berth, watching the wane of a soldier so traumatized and so vicious in battle that his own break came with a girl's hand on stone.

“I love you, Daddy, I love you and I came back here… here to right now. To this second to be with you… I came back, Daddy. It’s going to be okay now, I know what to do. I know how to fix all this and… and I’m going to take care of you, now.”

In the Netherworld the only constants Yasha Mantis had were the prevalence of ruin, her two compatriots, and the angst of her parents’ love. When every inch of the Netherworld actively battled to expel her, to bar Yasha’s way, [member="Aditya Mantis"]’s dogged push brought her daughter clawing another yard further in. When the Netherworld’s traps and agonies blocked her mind, condemned her or entrapped her, it was the chill of her father’s ungodly scream, which broke the enchantments and reminded her of why she never, not for one second, gave up.

How could she say it in a way her father would understand the bravery and determination of a daughter who only wanted to emulate him? To make him proud? Yasha looked up to catch Kaden’s eye, as he, [member="Silas Mantis"] and Shia dealt with a wickedly angry young man.

Mandalore caused that anger. ​

She caused that pain to find answers, which at the time, were so consumingly important they drove every spare molecule in the girl’s brain. Find the Gate, figure out how Ra came back to life, decipher the secrets to the trajectories carrying the Mandalorian Empire into a bedrock of ruin and open galactic war.

Seven years of Hell not only bartered her answers from [member="Ember Rekali"], but brought her back to the moment where she could return, take flight, and do the most to repair what she gladly helped break in the name of security.

In the name of anger.​

​

In the name of grief.​

​

In the name of Mand’alor.​

The woman holding her father continued to rub his back and shoulders, to simply hold a shattered and grieving man. Oh how she'd longed to throw her arms around him, to tear Preliat Mantis from his madness and his grief and instill instead an uncanny and pristine hope! Oh how she sobbed to be held by her father, forgiven for her petulant youth and the lives she took as the Daughter of Anger. Now on the other side of wisdom, the young woman clung with the will of the damned, who step by step earned their way back to paradise.

Heaven was feeling her father's arms around her again. It was seeing Kaden and Shia in a place of safety, where they too could eventually lower their guard.

Heaven was the ability to see across an expansive horizon and find allies instead of enemies.

Heaven was a cold breath in unsteady lungs used above all, to sulfur.

“I’m taking care of you now, Daddy. I’m taking care of all of you.”

“Katlaydr… the section outliers need confirmation…”

“Set the captives free. No one will get cured here. All units, return to Mandalore, all Commandoes, all Death Watch, all Vevut Vod, return to your posts around the Gate. The Witches of Dathomir are our sisters and brothers. We have been consumed of late with destroying our siblings out of pain, out of the urge to destroy those who caused our grief to fall like the ashes of Manda’yaim. As treacherous as the road may become, we shall know our peace. We shall surpass our agony and return to true and unadulterated glory. We consolidate our presence on Dathomir to the Warlock Gate, and upon this land we will construct a pyre for the fallen of Manda’yaim, of Dathomir, of the Manda back to the very first Mando’ad who fell and came to Hold the Line. For all our fallen. Dathomir’s atmosphere will share the particulates of our shared grief, and we will repair our Empire and our worlds. Katlaydr out.” The transmission radiated outward, as the Mando’ade returned to their ships and their fractured home world. The story of a child, and her two companions, who dared rush the Warlock Gate for answers and returned spread like wildfire.

Katlaydr defeated Hell for the Mando'ade...



A young woman stood in a glade and held a broken man. She turned her eyes to the two who shared her horrors in the Netherworld, and stuttered to inhale.



“Shia, Kaden. We’re going home.”

As Verd’goten went, this was one for the history books.

~Fin~

 

[Allana Mazhar]

Allana swung furiously at Bik and Kalo, until they both abruptly dived to the floor. Allana raised her sword for a powerful overhead strike, but then the stun bolt of [member="Shia Kryze"] hit her flat in the back. She froze for a moment, and tried to fight the sensation, but fell to the ground. Consciousness left her a scant second later. The two mandalorians would kick away her blade and put binders on her wrists, or perhaps they'd do something else similar, according to standard orders. One of them would prod her a bit to ensure she was unconscious, before notifying Kryze and perhaps one of the nearby Mantis's as to the catch. The other would see to their comrad, hoping there was a way the blade strike wasn't fatal.

The Mandalorians had captured a prisoner.

 

[Solar Energy Corporation]

Someone hit Kade from the side with the force of a truck and threw him off balance. His ankle gave way and he toppled sideways, helmeted head bouncing off the ground with vigor. He grunted and did somersault to come to his knees, then his feet. His axe hadn't found the mark, but his lightsaber still crackled in his right hand.

It'd have to be enough.

Vengeance roiled in his heart, head still reeling from the images of violence seared into his brain. A village slaughtered. Men. Women. They hadn't even spared the children.

His eyes looked on the gathered Mandalorians, far too many for him to take on alone, but he felt only blind fury.

Strider's eyes were locked into the dead gaze of a dathomirian child. Her lifeless petite frame laid motionless at the mandalorian's feet while Yasha's words echoed through his ears. He just stood there, froze in thought........ dark thoughts. This girl looked every part innocent sides from the vicious looking blade that her tiny hand still gripped.Just a child, he looked up from the girl and scanned the carnage his commandos had brought to this village. The violence was absolute, none had survived the warriors' wrath. The old to the young were all killed merciless because they were deemed a threat and most likely to resist. Targeted and neutralized in the pitch of night by the mandalorian commandos that emerged from the shadows and rained silent hell upon all those in that village.

A woman arrived and gave a short speech. They seemed about to leave. After all that. To just... just pretend it never happened?

Words of reconciliation fell on deaf ears, too confused and too angry.

Shared grief? Shared grief? How could they possibly share in a grief they had caused, when their armor was still freshly painted with the blood of his people? How could they dare stand there, the victorious huntsman and now deign to raise the wolf cubs with hands still stained in the blood of their mother?

Rage pulsated in his skull and he felt as though it might burst with the force of it.

"COME ON!" He screamed, voice cracking, hateful tears burning hot tracks down his cheeks.

[member="Shia Kryze"] | [member="Kaden Mantis"] | [member="Silas Mantis"] | [member="Preliat Mantis"] | [member="Yasha Mantis"]

 

[Yasha Cadera]

“No.” Yasha turned to the young [member="Kade Kol-Rekali"] and watched his anger and grief spill across the ground. She held up her hand to prevent her uncle [member="Silas Mantis"] from continuing the boy's slice of violence.

“We’ve done enough to your people. I acted on the anger caused by my family’s deaths, to try and find some meaning for the blood shed on Manda’yaim… there is nothing I can say, which could make the pain you feel better. I can’t apologize enough to make anything stick, but I can do right by you and let you live. Vengeance is a terrible road... eventually someone has to be the one to walk away from it.” Yasha watched him yell and scream, ready to fight for the chance to reclaim… something.

It was like seeing herself at 12 and 13. A girl throwing herself into a Civil War to fend off the ache of her family's deaths and her father's breakdowns.

“[member="Ember Rekali"] took your vengeance for you. I toiled seven years in the abject torturous landscapes of the Netherworld for what I did to Dathomir… in my youth I thought my reasons were worth the bloodshed… and now?” Watching Kade’s rage reminded Yasha of her own.

Of that one Mando she took a tomahawk to in MandalMotors… the first of nearly one hundred dead by her child-hands. Had she survived the Netherworld for her own benefit, she would have said nothing to the boy. Yet, what she learned, what Ember taught her was the stone which started the rockslide upon Mandalore’s future. Without it…

Oh without it…

Mandalore would fall. The sacrifices on Dathomir created a balm in the one person who would lead Mandalore to it's fate. Seven years humbled, and sitting at the feet of the Nightfather gave the Galaxy one slim chance, one single moment to come to an equilibrium. It could yet take place. An eventually glorious peace.

“I know it was.” Yasha turned her back on the ferociously angry young man and walked away. “Release him. We will shed no more blood here. The Dathomiri have their planet, and Manda’yaim has her answers. Ambrose… ensure he is not harmed.”

With that, Kade Kol-Rekali was left alone.

 

[Solar Energy Corporation]

Seven years? Ember? He didn’t understand.

None of this made any sense.

Fingers squeezed around the hilt of his lightsaber until it physically hurt.

He watched them go, blood and hate hammering in his head, gaze so full of fury he could feel his face turning red beneath the helmet, vessels bursting beneath the surface of his skin.

“I will hunt you down,” he rasped in a voice made raw by emotion, “and kill you. Every one of you.”

[member="Yasha Mantis"]

 

[Ember Rekali]

<<In due time, son,>> murmured a voice that only [member="Kade Kol-Rekali"] could hear. <<All in due time.>>

 

[Strider Garon]

"Strider!"

"Strider!!!!"

"Come on ner vod, We gotta move!"

The voices were just echoes in the old man's head. He could see, he could hear, he could even feel his warriors trying to get him up and moving and at the same time he couldn't. Just Echoes in the fog. His eyes were still frozen locked into the girl's lifeless hues. The girl he had gunned down without mercy, with out a second thought till now. Strider couldn't move, just paralyzed as if he was frozen in time. There was nothing special about the girl. She was feral looking like her sisters and the rest of her clan. Pale skin, groomed long black hair and jade green eyes. Those eyes, still open, robbed of life yet still etched into them was fear and terror.

"Get him up!"

She was just a girl. No real warrior. Her only crime was being a witch, a user of the force. He hated the force with every fibre in his body. Yet there was regret where it had never been before. This girl and her kin were targeted to be wiped just because her clan's threat level was high and unlikely to co-operate. So very still she laid, her hand tightly gripped around the dagger she had planned to plunge inter her murderer. Her other hand, gripped a crude child's toy. Strider wanted to reach out to it, but found he could not for he was being hoisted up by two sets of strong armored clad hands.

"Move......"

Next moment Strider felt his body trembling, he had his second in command by the throat and his knife pressed against it. Out of his peripheral vision he could see the two warriors that had picked him up were starting to gather themselves off the ground by what ever assault the old man had laid on them. He couldn't remember, just fog and echoes. Strider could taste his own tears, tasted like the salty sweat coming from one's forehead on a hot day. Yet this liquid was coming from his good eye like a stream.

"Take it easy........vod!......easy!" The 2IC whispered from his helmet, the blade pressed hard against the fabric of his under suit.

Strider backed off slowly letting his grip of his soldier. His mind was a cluster of emotions, regret, panic, demise, hopelessness.... the list cold go on. Was more like a tornado of absolute destruction and the legendary warrior could not contain it. All the carnage, slaughter, lost friends, dead family and loved ones. All them images rushed in his head a thousand miles a second. Every blink he took was a different horror faded over top of the aftermath of his current surroundings.

"Easy Strider....." He was still holding the blade, poised to strike at any that closed the gap. His commandos, confused yet disciplined circled him while their second in command tried to deescalate their leader.

Strider tossed his helmet off to the side, he was shaking uncontrollably. He wanted to speak but his voice was not their. His mind was waging a biblical war on itself, everything was coming to bare on his inner self. His soul. Everything hurt, a pain he had not suffered before. Decades of war and blood letting, his own body broken and torn then rebuilt again just to do it all over. The physical scars that littered his flesh held testament to a life of violence. But never had he felt this.

He was told ages ago that war takes it toll. Body and mind no matter how strong one was, there was only so much one could endure. This was the breaking point for Strider. He drew his blaster, dropping his knife and triggering the safety.

"Don't you do it!"

With out a word the old man raised the gun to his own temple. He had seen what this kind of break would do to a man. There was no way in hell he was going down like that. Was best just to end it. End the voices, End the images........ End the suffering before it really started. He took a deep breath, closing his eyes and slowly pulling his trigger finger.

He felt a hot and cold electrical pain rip through his body. A pain he was familiar with and all he could think of was 'No'. One of the soldiers had nailed him with stun shot before he could end his own life. Strider felt his body spasm as he fell. Then it was a crushing feeling as his boys doggy piled him, injecting him with sedative. The world went dark.