A Fragile Shard of a Dying Past

[Darth Fett]

Disguise
More than 600, less than 1620

Axl, age 11



The obsidian air was unnervingly stale and robust, immune to Axl’s attempts to tame and define it. For light by its very nature sought to tame and define darkness in all its forms, to cull each possibility contained within and impose the certainty of what was.


There was a tangible disconnect between the world he perceived and the same space, across this divide. Still, some impressions made it through the otherworldly veil. The distant echoes of boots on durasteel floors, the cold, antiseptic scent of the facility, and the oppressive weight of fear permeated the air.


He had slipped by the regiment of stormtroopers by tossing a metal can and misdirecting their gaze, but at the same time had started a timer. He had confirmed his presence SOMEWHERE in the vicinity. That would not go unanswered, and stormtroopers themselves were the least of his worries. Far more competent eyes would now seek him out; he was nearly out of nooks to crawl through undetected.



He would need to find cover or disguise himself. He'd considered trying to peel one trooper off from the pack and steal his armor, but he knew at his very young age, he would indeed be a little short for a stormtrooper. Indeed, he had no cloth to drape over himself to slip by the entire two garrisons between himself and his destination.



His mind darted to and fro between options and lessons he had been taught. One came to mind, though less than ideal.



He'd once, out of necessity, blended in with a group of Jawa merchants. Not merely by dressing in their robes and squatting down, but by calling on the Force to aid him in his time of need, to drain the light from around his pale face, to darken his countenance yet produce glowing orbs for his eyes. He had, that day, instinctively faked his form and lived to have need of such a miracle again.


That very air around Axl seemed to grow denser as he reached into the Force, drawing its energy into himself with slow, deliberate breaths. His form, once solid and defined, began to waver, the edges of his silhouette blurring as though melting into the surrounding shadows. The process was slow, a deliberate dissolution of his physical self into something more amorphous, something that defied the boundaries of flesh and bone.


He was not actually shifting forms, but previewing the image of himself he was broadcasting to any mind that received his signal, rewriting how their brains would process him. With it, at least for Axl, there were always side effects and unintended consequences.


Axl could feel the shift in his perception almost immediately. The world around him, normally vivid and sharp, began to lose its clarity, the colors bleeding into one another as though viewed through a frosted lens. His own body was at the center of this change, a focal point where reality bent and twisted under the influence of the Force. He watched as his hands, once defined by the intricate lines of his skin, began to darken, the details fading into a matte black surface that seemed to drink in the light.


The sensation was disconcerting, a profound detachment from his own physicality. His skin no longer felt like skin; it was as though he were enveloped in a layer of void, a cold, lightless substance that absorbed rather than reflected. The shadows clung to him, pooling at his feet and crawling up his legs like tendrils of ink, wrapping him in a cloak of utter darkness. He could no longer see his fingers, the contours of his limbs—there was only a formless mass where his body had once been.


Axl’s connection to the Force intensified, sharpening his awareness even as his physical form dissolved. He felt lighter, as if the weight of his body had been lifted, leaving only the essence of his being. But with this lightness came a deep, resonant hollowness, as though the very core of his identity was slipping away, replaced by the cold, impersonal void that now encased him. It was as if the world was rejecting his presence, forcing him into the role of an outsider, a shadow in the periphery of existence.


His senses adapted to this new state, the world around him transforming into a landscape of contrasts. The brightest lights became painful pinpricks against the inky backdrop of his vision, while the shadows deepened, becoming vast expanses of nothingness. Axl’s perspective shifted, his consciousness pulling away from the physical, anchoring instead in the fluid, ever-changing nature of the Force. He was no longer Axl, a being of flesh and blood; he was a shadow, a void, an absence in the fabric of reality.


But the strain of maintaining this form began to wear on him. The darkness that had once been a refuge now felt oppressive, constricting his thoughts, muddling his focus. The more he tried to hold onto the shadow, the more it seemed to resist, pushing back against his control. His concentration wavered, and with it, the shadow began to unravel, the darkness peeling away like layers of old paint, revealing something entirely different beneath.


Axl’s form began to solidify again, but it was not his own. The shadow receded, leaving behind the hunched form of an old woman, a Mirialan, her back bent under the weight of years. Her skin, a pale green mottled with the passage of time, was creased with deep, intricate wrinkles, each line a testament to a life lived in hardship. Her facial markings were asymmetrical and seemed to itch in his mind, as if they had been freshly tattooed to his very soul. The tattered robe she wore hung loosely over her frail frame, the fabric worn thin in places, its edges frayed and uneven.


Although these changes to his form were illusionary, they must have had a psychosomatic weight, amplified by his deep connection to the Force and his desperation to conceal himself from prying eyes. He knew what sort of troopers were now fanning out, alerted of a presence that did not belong.


The shift was jarring, a violent swing from the abstract to the hyper-real. Axl felt the weight of the transformation settle on him like a heavy mantle, pressing down on his shoulders and forcing him to bend under its pressure. The once-light sensation was replaced by a crushing gravity, the bones in his body seeming to creak with the effort of holding up this new, foreign form.


His sense of self was momentarily disoriented, as though he had been thrust into another’s skin, another’s life. The connection to the Force remained, but it was different now, tinged with the essence of this new identity. It was as if the Force itself had molded him into this shape, filling the empty spaces left by the shadow with the memories, the experiences of this old woman.


Instinctively, his gait changed. Where Axl had once walked with a measured, purposeful stride, the old woman’s body moved with a shuffling, uneven pace. Each step was cautious, the soles of her feet dragging slightly against the ground, as though each movement was a painful effort. The world seemed taller now, more imposing, the horizon tilting downward as he hobbled forward, the robe swaying limply around his legs.


The robe’s facade of rough fabric nonetheless “brushed” against his very real skin, a constant reminder of the frailty of this form. His hands, now gnarled and bony, trembled slightly with age, the fingers curled inward as though clinging to an invisible staff for support. His vision, once sharp and clear, was now clouded, the edges of his sight tinged with a soft blur that made the world seem more distant, more detached.


As Axl moved, the old woman’s persona began to seep into him, not in thoughts or memories, but in the way his body responded to the world. There was a hesitancy in his steps, a cautiousness born of years spent navigating an unforgiving existence. His mind struggled to reconcile the disconnect between his true self and the form he now inhabited, the lines between them blurring with each faltering step.


The sensation was overwhelming, a maelstrom of conflicting identities and emotions. Axl could feel the old woman’s weariness, her deep-seated resignation to the ravages of time, pressing down on his consciousness like a heavy shroud. Yet, beneath it all, his own essence remained, flickering like a dying ember in the depths of this borrowed form.

A trooper rushed by him, unconcerned by his unassuming form. It was working, thus far.

The Force, ever-present, pulsed around him, a constant reminder of the power he wielded, yet in this moment, it felt distant, almost indifferent to his struggle. Axl’s sense of self was fraying at the edges, unraveling under the weight of this transformation, as if the very fabric of his identity was being pulled apart, thread by thread.


And then it happened. He felt them arrive. The Purge Troopers were rounding the corner, answering the call to sweep the sector. And behind them, something far more imposing, and for young Axl, an untested challenge. One that had meant the end for many more attuned and disciplined than himself.


In the confusion, his form slipped and blinked away. The boy darted behind cover, praying to gods in which he didn't believe that he hadn't been seen.



Regardless, he followed the training protocols his father had drilled into him. He slipped between cover and shadows, repositioning in case he had been spotted. He was a ball hidden beneath a cup, being shuffled before a bewildered mark with deep pockets and shallow wit. He hoped.

...

[Darth Fett]

Force Mask
More than 500, less than 1,876

(...continued)


Axl crouched behind a stack of metal crates, his breath shallow, his heart pounding in his chest like a war drum. The dim light flickered, casting elongated shadows that danced with a sinister grace. He could feel the tremors of the Purge Troopers' footsteps reverberating through the floor, a chilling reminder of the relentless hunt that sought to snuff out his existence.


The troopers were methodical, their movements precise and calculated. They swept the room with military precision, their visors gleaming with an unfeeling, mechanical coldness. Axl watched them, his muscles tense, ready to spring into action if needed. But action was not an option. Not here, not now. His only hope was to remain hidden, to become a ghost within the shadows.


The Force swirled around him, a tempest of fear and desperation. He closed his eyes, drawing it in, feeling its currents flow through him. He needed to clear his mind, to calm the raging storm within. The Purge Troopers were formidable, but they were not his greatest threat. No, that honor belonged to the presence he felt approaching—a dark, suffocating aura that could only belong to an Inquisitor.


Axl's blood ran cold. The Inquisitor was close, and with them came a deeper danger. The Inquisitor was a master of the dark side, a hunter trained to root out and destroy Force-sensitives like him. He could feel their presence like a heavy shroud, a void that threatened to consume all light and hope.


He had to hide, not just physically, but within the Force itself. He needed to mask his presence, to become invisible to the Inquisitor’s probing senses. It was a skill he had practiced, but under duress, it was far more difficult. The stakes were higher, the margin for error nonexistent.


Drawing a slow, deliberate breath, Axl centered himself. He envisioned a still pond, its surface unbroken by ripples. He was the pond, his emotions, the potential disturbances. He needed to be calm, serene, untouched by the chaos around him. He focused on the sensation of the Force, feeling it flow through him and around him, a silent current.


He began to weave his presence into the fabric of the Force, blending with it, becoming part of the background noise. It was a delicate process, akin to threading a needle while blindfolded. Any slip, any tremor of fear or doubt, would be enough to give him away.


The Inquisitor entered the room, their presence a palpable weight. Axl could hear the soft swish of their cloak, the almost inaudible hum of their lightsaber. They moved with predatory grace, a panther stalking its prey. He could feel their probing mind, a cold, sharp instrument slicing through the layers of the Force, searching for any sign of his presence.


Axl’s heart pounded in his chest, each beat a deafening drum that threatened to shatter his concentration. He could feel the fear clawing at the edges of his mind, a relentless tide that sought to pull him under. He fought to maintain his calm, to keep the stillness of the pond undisturbed.


The Inquisitor’s presence grew stronger, their mind brushing against his hiding place. Axl felt a spike of fear, a sharp jolt that threatened to break his concentration. He clenched his jaw, forcing the fear down, burying it deep within himself. He could not afford to be found. Not now, not ever.


He focused on his breathing, each inhale and exhale a deliberate act of will. He imagined himself as a stone, solid and unyielding, unmoved by the currents around him. The Inquisitor’s mind was a cold wind, probing, searching, but Axl was the mountain, steadfast and immovable.


The process of merging with the Force to cloak his presence was akin to sinking into an ethereal mire, where each sensation became an intricate, nuanced ballet of perception and detachment. As Axl began to channel the Force, a deep, visceral shiver cascaded through his body, like a ripple disturbing a placid pool of black velvet. The air seemed to thicken, drawing in closer and pressing against his skin with a subtle, suffocating density.


Internally, the sensation was a contradictory blend of clarity and numbness. His mind felt as though it were expanding, stretching thin across the fabric of the universe, yet simultaneously contracting into a singular point of focus. The mental landscape became a darkened expanse, where thoughts and emotions drifted away like wisps of smoke, gradually evaporating into the void. It was as though an unseen hand was sweeping through his mind, meticulously erasing the traces of his presence.


Axl’s breathing turned shallow and irregular, each inhalation and exhalation a rhythmic pulse against the overwhelming stillness. The ambient sounds of his surroundings—the distant hum of machinery, the occasional clatter of metal—dissolved into a muffled, far-off echo. The silence within his mind grew almost oppressive, a palpable void that seemed to consume all external noise. The sensation was not merely auditory but also tactile, a silence that pressed against his eardrums and wrapped itself around his thoughts like a cocoon.


The air tasted of metal and faint ozone, the remnants of his own anxiety mingling with the sterile, cold tang of the environment. This metallic flavor seemed to coat his tongue, a bitter reminder of the danger that lay outside his protective shroud. The scent was a constant, underlying presence, almost metallic, blending with the sterile aroma of the ship’s interior, which seemed to heighten the paradoxical clarity of his focus.


Physically, the experience was disorienting. His belly churned as though he were plummeting through an endless abyss, the sensation of weightlessness mingling with an unsettling, oppressive gravity. The Force’s influence made his stomach tighten in an anxious knot, a visceral response to the immense concentration required to maintain his concealment. It was a pressure that seemed to radiate from his core, extending outward until every muscle felt taut and strained.


Mentally, the Force’s grip was both a burden and a release. His thoughts, once a chaotic maelstrom of urgency and fear, began to smooth out into a fluid, almost hypnotic stream. The effort to maintain this state of nullity was draining, like holding one’s breath underwater for an extended period. Each moment seemed to stretch, expanding infinitely as his consciousness delved deeper into the Force’s embrace.


His head felt light, as though it were floating just above his shoulders, tethered only by the delicate thread of concentration. There was a disorienting quality to this detachment, a sensation of drifting away from the immediate reality while remaining anchored in the Force’s surreal landscape. It was a feeling of almost vertiginous disconnection, where the edges of his awareness blurred and the space around him seemed to warp and waver.


In this cocoon of concealed presence, every sensation was magnified, yet also obscured. The distinct lines between sensory inputs began to blur, creating a disorienting interplay of sensations. The darkness of the Force wrapped around him like a shroud, an enveloping warmth that was paradoxically cold and smooth. It was a dense, comforting darkness that pressed against his skin, creating an intimate cocoon of isolation.


The overall experience was one of profound isolation and clarity, a deep plunge into the essence of the Force that paradoxically made him feel both intensely present and eerily absent. It was a delicate balance between maintaining his obscured presence and the overwhelming sensation of floating within an incomprehensible void. As he fought to hold onto this fragile shield of concealment, the external world seemed to dissolve into an impenetrable haze, with only the relentless pressure of the Force’s embrace keeping him tethered to reality.


The seconds stretched into eternity. The Purge Troopers continued their sweep, their movements a background hum to the tension that filled the room. Axl could feel the Inquisitor’s frustration, their anger at the elusive prey that continued to evade them. He knew that he was walking a razor’s edge, that one wrong move, one slip of concentration, would be his end.


Axl’s muscles ached from the strain of holding his position, his mind weary from the constant vigilance. The Inquisitor was relentless, their presence a suffocating shadow that sought to consume him. He could feel the sweat trickling down his back, the cold, clammy fear that gripped his heart.


The Inquisitor moved closer, their steps deliberate, each one a hammer blow against Axl’s fragile calm. He could feel their gaze, a cold, piercing thing that seemed to strip away the shadows, laying bare the truth beneath. He held his breath, his entire being focused on maintaining the illusion of invisibility.


And then, in a heartbeat, everything changed. A shift in the air, a tremor in the Force, and Axl knew he had been found. The Inquisitor’s gaze snapped to his hiding place, their eyes blazing with a predatory triumph. Axl felt a surge of fear, a wave of adrenaline that sent his heart racing.


The stillness of the pond shattered, the ripples spreading outward, a cascade of emotion that broke his concentration. The Inquisitor’s presence crashed over him like a tidal wave, drowning him in darkness. He felt their mind, cold and cruel, probing deep into his own, tearing through his defenses with ruthless efficiency.


Axl’s breath came in ragged gasps, his heart pounding like a drum. He could see the Inquisitor now, their figure looming in the dim light, a shadowy specter of death. He knew that he had seconds, perhaps less, to act, to fight, to survive. But the fear, the despair, the suffocating weight of the Inquisitor’s presence, held him in place, frozen in the grip of his own terror.


“Ah,” the Inquisitor's voice, cold and modulated, cut through the silence, "there you are."


Axl's eyes widened, his body tensing as the dark figure stepped closer, the shadows swirling around them like a living thing. The battle had begun, and Axl knew that he was outmatched, outnumbered, and out of time.


He winced, and the unmistakable birthing of a lightsaber blade erupted and heated his eardrum. The doppler effect was hypnotic in what were to be his final seconds. Then the swing, the killing blow.


His eyelids and his every muscle clenched even harder as the anticipation of the searing next moment dragged on for… an impossible duration.


His lids loosened and he craned his neck upward. The inquisitor was staggering, their knees defiantly but weakly swaying next to his face. The lightsaber blade did clash down an inch from his face, down next to his fingers. The blade continued its limp trajectory into the floor before collapsing on itself, tumbling, and retreating to its hilt.


The black helmet and mask followed, separated from the wavering body at the neck.


Another Inquisitor stood behind the headless husk that had hunted him, this one far more familiar.


Vasilisa, Axl's mother, had taken the fateful swing still reverberating at every frequency in the child's cranium.


“Nevine,” she hissed, “never did have much worth keeping above her shoulders.”


She shifted her weight and slid to the side, opening Axl's view to the scene behind her. Each Purge Trooper had been similarly dispatched. Sten hunched over one, looting its corpse, still glowing on the ridges where it had been bisected.


He never was one for wasting time.

[Darth Fett]

Axl, 19
Part I

Resist Stun
More than 400, less than 1,968

The alley reeked, a caustic perfume woven into the humid air. Axl stood at the center of the chaos, his back pressed against a cold durasteel wall. The five Purge Troopers inched closer, their electrostaffs crackling with arcs of unstable energy. The flickering purple light danced over the puddles of rainwater and oil at their boots, reflecting like jagged fractures of lightning caught in a mirror.

Axl exhaled, his hands raised in a pantomime of surrender. "Let me guess," he slurred, his voice carrying a deliberate bravado, "you drew straws for who gets to kick my rear first, and you all lost?"

The lead trooper’s staff snapped forward, sending a warning jolt that licked the air between them. Axl didn’t flinch. His eyes flicked briefly to the shadows at the far end of the alley, where Domi and Erailic crept away. They needed more time. He had to give it to them.

The first strike came fast, the electrostaff slamming into his ribs with a burst of crackling energy. Pain ripped through his torso, sharp and electric, a wave of fire that seized his muscles and set his nerves ablaze. His breath hitched, his body instinctively recoiling, but Axl forced himself to stay upright, bracing against the wall as the shock coursed through him.
It had hit like a shard of thunder, an arc of lightning lancing through his ribs and burrowing into his core. The electric pulse didn’t simply strike; it invaded, a searing thread unspooling through his flesh, spreading out in jagged, stuttering lines. Each tendon, each nerve felt dissected, dissected and examined as the volts coiled around them like living things. The jolt slammed into his diaphragm, freezing the instinct to breathe, and his heart staggered, missing a beat before stuttering back to life. A sharp tinge filled his mouth, blending with the coppery taste of his own blood where he’d bitten the inside of his cheek.


The current leapt, latching onto his spine with claws of pure energy, climbing vertebrae by vertebrae, seeking the sanctity of his brainstem. Fett’s teeth clenched hard enough to make his jaw ache, a grim anchor against the chaos spreading within. His focus narrowed, the Force rising within him in tandem with the pain, a countercurrent against the flood. He visualized the path of the electricity, its violent quest to dominate his nervous system. The jagged sparks ricocheted inside him, pushing outward, searching for control, but the Force was already at work, dampening the edges, softening the blows. The volts that had sought his heart now found themselves rerouted, slipping downward, funneled into his thighs and calves.

The Force met the pain like a shield, a rush of cold against the burning heat, dampening the surge before it could reach his heart. He visualized the volts dispersing, flowing downward through his legs and into the ground. His feet felt like anchors, heavy with the effort of grounding the energy, but he willed them to hold. The electricity sizzled and spat, dissipating into the puddles at his boots, leaving his skin tingling and raw.

Another staff lashed out, catching him across the shoulder. The impact drove him to one knee, the arc of energy dancing up his neck and into his skull. His vision blurred, stars bursting in his periphery, but he reached inward, pulling the Force to him like a drowning man clawing for air. He focused on his breathing, shallow, ragged, but deliberate, and directed the charge away from his vital organs. The volts crackled through his arm, igniting every nerve in a crescendo of agony, but he gritted his teeth and pushed the energy outward, imagining it bleeding into the damp alley floor.
It was the contact point blazing like a sunburst as the current poured into him. His muscles seized, spasming uncontrollably as the electricity commandeered his motor functions. He felt his shoulder blades twitch against the constraints of his tunic, his fingers curling involuntarily as if some cruel puppeteer had taken hold of his strings. And yet, within the chaos, he felt the energy’s intent, its raw, untamed hunger to dominate.


He surrendered to the Force, allowing it to thread itself through his nerves, a cool balm against the relentless heat. The current fought back, coiling around the base of his spine, but the Force unraveled it, splitting the energy into harmless fragments. Fett guided each shard downward, dispersing it into the soles of his feet and into the damp ground below. His knees buckled, but he stayed upright, leaning into the wall for support, his breath coming in sharp, shallow gasps.

The subsequent landing blow was a downward swing, the staff hammering into his back with a crackling hiss. The pain was different this time, deeper, heavier, a white hot spike that threatened to split him in two. Axl collapsed forward, his palms slapping against the slick wall as his muscles seized, his body caught in the throes of the shock.
The blow was sharper, crueler, the electrostaff catching his side just above the hip. The pulse struck bone first, the jarring impact sending a shockwave through his pelvis and up into his ribcage. Fett’s head snapped back, his mouth opening in a silent cry as the current surged upward. It clawed at his lungs, choking the air from them, before racing toward his heart. He felt the arrhythmia before it began, his pulse skipping wildly as the electricity tried to seize control.

His lungs screamed for air, his chest locked in a suffocating vice, but the Force flowed through him, dulling the edges of the pain.
But the Force was there, waiting, a constant presence beneath the agony. Fett reached for it with every shred of willpower he had, focusing not on the pain but on the pathways the current traveled. He saw it as a map, an intricate web of roads branching and forking, some leading to danger, others to safety. He blocked the pathways leading to his vital organs, erecting invisible barriers that redirected the energy. The volts twisted and writhed, seeking another route, but Fett funneled them downward, forcing them into his legs and out through his heels. The damp ground hissed faintly as it absorbed the discharge.


His legs shook, his muscles twitching with the residual energy, but he kept his focus. The Force flowed through him, a steady current of its own, countering the wild chaos of the electricity. Each spark, each jolt became a point of focus, an opportunity to practice control. The pain didn’t vanish, it never did, but it became manageable, a background hum against the sharper rhythm of his breathing.

He visualized the shock as a storm, chaotic and wild, its bolts lashing against the walls of his mind. The Force became his shelter, a barrier that deflected the storm’s fury, redirecting the energy into the earth beneath him. His hands trembled against the ground, his fingers digging into the grime as he channeled the volts away. The troopers stepped closer, their boots splashing in the puddles, their staffs raised for another blow.

Axl’s heart pounded in his ears, each beat reverberating through his body like a war drum. The pain had layered itself now, sharp spikes mingling with dull throbs, searing heat entwined with icy numbness. That numbness was what he needed to ready himself. To not merely redirect the stunning blows, but to shut himself off from them.

The next strike came without warning, the staff jabbing into his abdomen with a burst of blinding light. The volts surged through his core, twisting and writhing like a living thing, searching for weak points to exploit. Axl gasped, his vision dimming as the charge burned through him, but he held firm. He focused on the energy’s path, visualizing it like a river of fire flowing through his veins. The Force became the dam, redirecting the torrent away from his organs, forcing it to dissipate along the edges of his body. Each breath was a battle, each heartbeat a struggle to maintain focus. The Force didn’t dull the pain. it couldn’t. But it gave him the tools to survive it. He felt the volts crawling up his spine, a lattice of searing heat and jagged spikes, but he willed them downward, grounding them through his legs. His muscles twitched and spasmed, his body trembling under the strain, but he held his ground.

The volts poured into him like a flood, cascading down his arm and into his chest. His fingers curled instinctively, the muscles locking as the electricity raced through his hand. He could feel it spreading, a fiery tendril wrapping around his bicep, climbing toward his neck. The sparks danced along his nerves, bright and sharp, sending waves of searing heat through his flesh.
Fett closed his eyes, focusing inward. He felt the current in excruciating detail, each arc a distinct entity, each tendril a threat to be neutralized. He guided the Force through his arm, weaving it around the electricity like a shield. The sparks recoiled, diverted by the barrier, and Fett pushed them downward, forcing them to retreat. The volts hissed and crackled as they dispersed, leaving his arm trembling but intact.

This time he truly steeled himself for what came next, the Force standing him erect, turning his nervous system into a rigid statue on a quaking temple.

The strike caught him across the face, the staff’s arc grazing his jaw and snapping his head to the side. His teeth clamped down hard, the metallic taste of blood filling his mouth as the volts spread across his skull. His thoughts scattered, fragments of sensation and memory colliding in a chaotic swirl, but he forced himself to focus. He pulled the Force to him, letting it flow through his mind like a soothing balm, restoring clarity to his fractured consciousness.

Axl’s body was a canvas of burns and bruises. The Force dissipated much of the blow while numbing him to the rest, holding him steady as the storm raged around him. He could feel the energy coursing through him, a wild and untamed force that craved insatiable retaliatory bliss.

The troopers moved in closer, their staffs crackling with renewed intensity. Axl staggered to his feet, his legs shaking under the weight of the volts still lingering in his body. He raised his head, his vision swimming, and grinned through bloodied lips. “That all you’ve got?” he rasped, his voice raw but defiant. “I’ve been hit harder by bath water.”

But even in the chaos, Fett found clarity. The Force became his rabid guard dog, grounding him against the storm. He visualized the current as a wild beast, thrashing and snapping, and the Force as a tether, pulling it back, calming it. He guided the volts downward, splitting them into smaller currents that his body could handle. Each spark became a flicker, each arc a whisper, until the storm subsided.

A background hum that underscored every movement, every breath. But Axl endured. The Force pulsed through him. unwavering, a quiet strength that carried him through.

The leftover accumulated energy he had not channeled through his surroundings buzzed in each digit, until the next blow became imminent. Axl's palm snapped to meet it, teeming with the power cache the troopers had supplied, and in an automatic tempest, it jolted through the shaft of the weapon, and directly into the one wielding it. He blasted off the ground and through the air, and before his staff hit the ground, he'd crashed through the scaffolding above a guard tower. Axl was not able to keep track as his instinct tracked and moved to counter the next attack.

In that moment, a corner of the tower faltered and dragged a web of the scaffolding with it

The massive but unstable structure crumbled onto the group's heads.

[Darth Fett]

Axl, Age 19
Part II

Remain Conscious
More than 400, less than 1,853

The collapse had been sudden and unforgiving, a nightmare of groaning metal and snapping cables followed by the oppressive silence of stillness. Axl lay pinned beneath the mangled remnants of the guard tower, the weight of twisted durasteel compressing his chest and abdomen. His left arm was trapped, immobilized by a shard of debris that pressed against bone with merciless precision. His right shoulder bore the sharp intrusion of scaffolding that had punctured through flesh, the jagged metal still warm from the explosion. Blood seeped from the wound, sluggish and thick, its heat pooling against the cold dirt beneath him.

His breaths came shallow and strained, each inhale a laborious effort against the crushing weight above. The air was thick with dust, carrying the scent of scorched metal and distant fires. Every nerve in his body screamed with the raw immediacy of pain, a relentless tide that ebbed and surged with every pulse of his racing heart. But Axl had learned long ago to compartmentalize agony. Pain was an old lover, and the Force was his only tool now to resist its side effect of passing out.

He closed his eyes against the burning haze that blurred his vision, his focus turning inward. The Force was faint, elusive in the chaos, but it was there. a faint thread weaving through the fabric of his being. He reached for it with a deliberate slowness, drawing it toward him with each rasping breath. The effort was grueling, as if every cell in his body resisted the act of survival, but he persisted.

The edges of his vision frayed like old parchment caught in flame, darkness licking hungrily inward, threatening to engulf everything. Axl’s breaths were shallow and fractured, a battle fought one inhale at a time against the suffocating weight pinning him to the cold ground. His mind, itself a fortress under siege, teetered on collapse, but he refused to let it fall. Consciousness was his last refuge, the thread keeping him tethered to this brutal reality. More to the point, were he to drift off even were he to survive, an actual Inquisitor would soon arrive. Then he would be at their mercy, not merely imperilling his own life, but his family’s.

He felt something writhing, heard a crackle and a groan. First, he mistook it for his own, a dissociated echo of his own struggle.

Only no.

A trooper had survived as well, pinned through the calf by a beam, itself twisted beyond any ability to straighten out and cleanly dislodge. It was an anchor, an excruciating leash. But the trooper was coming to. It spent a moment coming to the same realization Fett had about his state. Growling obscenities, the trooper tugged to free himself to no avail.

Then he spotted Axl. He scanned around, his gaze even through the helmet was transparent as it locked on a blaster just out of his immediate reach. He flailed about and stretched, screaming in agony as he tested the strength of his bindings.


The Force was distant, muted, and yet not unreachable. Fett reached for it not like a man clawing for salvation but with the steady precision of a craftsman retrieving the exact tool he required. The collapse had taken his body by surprise, but his mind was another matter. He pulled the Force close, drawing its threads around him, weaving it into a latticework to shield his consciousness from the encroaching void.


Every breath became a meditation, a rhythmic dance with the Force. He inhaled, pulling light into the suffocating tunnels of his mind. He exhaled, pushing back against the seductive pull of oblivion. The pressure on his chest was a crushing embrace, each inhale scraping against his ribs as though the air itself had turned to glass. But it was the rhythm of breathing that mattered now, the proof of life, the drumbeat of defiance.

He could feel his body’s betrayal as clearly as the blood pooling beneath his pinned side, sticky and hot. The pounding in his skull throbbed in a relentless cadence, threatening to drown him in its tide. His muscles quivered under the weight, exhaustion gnawing at their edges, whispering of surrender. But surrender was not an option. He pressed his will into the Force like a blade into soft earth, steadying his breath, slowing the panic.

The creeping darkness returned, this time not just at the corners of his vision but coiling around his thoughts. He felt its weight in the back of his skull, the seductive heaviness of sleep beckoning with promises of release. His mind fought back, not with brute force but with all the precious deftness he could spare. He visualized the Force as a barrier, a translucent dome encasing his awareness. The darkness pressed against it, but it did not break through. It could not break through.


The debris shifted above him, a groan of tortured metal grinding against his ear. His shoulder screamed as the scaffolding shard twisted deeper, its serrated edge scraping bone. The pain was sharp, white-hot, but he refused to let it drag him under. He willed the Force to focus on his mind, not his body, insulating his consciousness against the tide of agony. Pain was the storm battering his fortress walls; his mind was the unyielding keep within.


The faint scent of scorched air and blood filled his nostrils, grounding him. He couldn’t afford to lose himself to abstractions now. He had to stay present, to cling to the small sensory anchors that tied him to reality. The grit under his fingers, the faint vibrations of distant conflict, the acidic taste of iron on his tongue, each was a lifeline. He gripped them tightly, refusing to let them slip through his mental fingers.


His pulse, erratic at first, began to stabilize as he poured his focus into it. He could feel the rhythm of his heart like the beating of war drums, each thud a declaration of resistance. The Force flowed through him now, not in a torrent but in a steady, deliberate stream, reinforcing the fragile connections within his mind. It coursed through the folds of his consciousness, smoothing the frayed edges and shoring up the cracks.


He turned his focus inward, into the labyrinth of his own mind. Thoughts raced like wild animals in the dark, colliding with each other in chaotic bursts. He forced them to slow, to align, corralling them into a single, cohesive stream. The Force became the shepherd, guiding his thoughts along the paths he chose, away from panic and despair. He visualized his awareness as a flame, small but steady, flickering against the encroaching dark. The Force was the fuel that kept it burning.


The weight on his chest pressed harder, his ribs groaning under the strain. He didn’t fight it. Fighting would have wasted energy he couldn’t afford to lose. Instead, he adapted, shifting his focus to the space within the weight, the narrow gap where air could still pass. He guided the Force into that space, expanding it subtly, creating room to breathe. Each inhale came easier than the last, though the effort still felt monumental.


His head swam, dizziness threatening to pull him under, but he anchored himself in the Force. He visualized it as roots, deep and unshakable, sinking into the earth beneath him. The weight could crush his body, but it could not sever the roots. His consciousness clung to them, refusing to be torn away. The dizziness receded, the swirling chaos in his mind replaced by a calm, steady rhythm.

The trooper had made progress, inching toward the discarded rifle strewn only slightly closer to him than to the young sith he meant to target. The trooper knew there was a decent chance of his death regardless of his action or inaction, but the only way to ensure his life was to rid himself of Axl. If he simply gave up and bleeding out hadn't finished him off, the pinned sith may have freed himself and done the job, or worse, the trooper would have to wait for an Inquisitor to arrive and rid themselves of his incompetence. Killing Axl was do or die.

The darkness clawed at Fett again, this time with greater urgency, as though it sensed his defiance. It pressed against his barriers, probing for weakness. But Fett met it with quiet strength. The Force was no longer a tool—it was an extension of his will, as natural as breathing. He didn’t push the darkness away; he redirected it, channeling its energy into the flow of the Force. The enemy became fuel, its strength turned against it.

His vision cleared slightly, the darkness retreating to the edges once more. The sounds around him sharpened, each detail coming into focus. The hiss of wind through the wreckage. The faint crackle of distant fires. The quiet drip of his own blood onto the ground below. Each sound was a marker, a waypoint in the map of his survival.

The Force whispered to him now, not in words but in sensations, guiding his focus where it was needed most. He followed its lead, weaving it through his thoughts, fortifying his mind against the relentless assault of his injuries. The pain was still there, a constant undercurrent, but it no longer controlled him. He had taken control.

The oppressive weight on his chest seemed lighter now, though he knew it was an illusion. The Force wasn’t lifting the debris—it was lifting him, strengthening his resolve, reinforcing his will to endure. He could feel the boundaries of his consciousness solidifying, the cracks sealing, the walls standing firm.

Axl Fett was pinned, battered, and broken, but he was awake.

With a woozy but reinvigorated snap to attention, Axl locked eyes with the trooper's helmet’s soulless lenses, his fingers splayed and dancing at the rifle's stock. The beam jutting through his calf was stretching his wound to its tearing point, meat folding on itself. Each whimper and grunt echoed, spilling outward like his blood.

Axl nodded a halfhearted apology.

“I was rooting for you, comrade.”

Axl's hand did its best to salute despite his upper arm being immobile. The salute turned into a grip, and soon the rifle rose to meet it.

The final surviving purge trooper of his unit quit struggling, steam rushing out of a fresh well in his helmet.

Axl's face lit up as explosions lined the distance. The nearby garrison erupted. It certainly wasn't his handiwork.

Before long, the unmistakable hum of their YT-2000 steadily grew behind him, overhead, and a landing ramp extended in his periphery. Domi had done more than simply escape with Erailic, but had ensured as clean a getaway as they could hope, save for an imminent arrival of true threats. She was present. She was a present. Countless burning bodies were the gift receipt.

Axl closed his eyes and groaned as he commanded control over a well of gravity, nulling its effects over the debris. As the stone and shrapnel began to float, his family rushed in and began tossing the hazards aside, digging their brother and husband free.

[Darth Fett]

[Breath Control]
More than 400, less than 1400

Axl, AGE 15
PART 1

The bog swelled beneath his boots, each step sucked down into muck that clung and pulled like a living thing. Axl's breath rasped in his throat, sharp with cold panic and the bitter metallic bite of algae rotted water. The air tasted thick and spoiled, fat with decay and the vaporous breath of decomposing flora. His lungs fought it. It entered unwillingly.

Flies and slick bodied insects swarmed his face, drawn to the sweat lining his brow and the acrid stench rising from the water. One slipped past his lips and he gagged, spitting violently as he barreled forward, his shoulder brushing wet bark slick with moss. He did not stop. Neither did she.

Domi ran beside him, her limbs taut with urgency, her face streaked with grime and streaks of red, her lips parted in silence. Her braid whipped behind her, heavy with rainwater and filth. Her eyes darted skyward for cover that was not there. The trees had grown sparse, twisted and thin. Their canopies rose too high to shield them. Here, there was no protection, only the smothering heat and the illusion of depth in water black with silt.

Every splash of their passage reverberated against the trunks in stuttering echoes. It betrayed them. Axl knew it. The troopers would hear it.
He could already feel their presence bleeding into the swamp. The insects knew first. They always did. Clouds of them lifted ahead, taking flight with sudden violence as if the very air recoiled.

The swamp pressed in. Trees hunched like lepers and leaned without pattern, creating labyrinths, paths that bent the horizon and disoriented the eye. His calves screamed, soaked to the knee, seeping in through the tops of his rather tall boots. Each time his foot broke the surface, it rose coated in brown black muck that clung in thick ropes. The water stank of brine and leeches and long dead things. It slicked his thighs and soaked his belt, and beneath the surface, he could feel movement. Not imagined. Not small.

Branches cracked in the distance. Not branches. Armor.

His stomach coiled. He could feel her glance sideways at him, in the way she always had, gauging his threshold for his own well being and not only her survival

Neither of them spoke. There was no need to. They kept moving. The trees would not protect them. The bog would not hide them. And the enemy needed only see to kill.

The troopers could be deadly, but were themselves not the main threat instilling them with panic. It was their superiors. Where this many purge troopers stalked force users, an Inquisitor frequently followed. Axl's mother had been one, and she had installed in him a healthy respect for their capabilities.

Domi was the first to drop. Her boots sank with a soft churn, then she slipped beneath the surface without a ripple. Axl followed, gritting his teeth against the instinct to gasp one more time. The cold hit him first. It bit into his chest, wrapped around his ribs, and closed his throat.

The weight of the swamp sealed over his head like a lid.

The world went dark and thick. The silt turned the water to tar, warm and stinking, swallowing all sound. His limbs floated with slow resistance. His fingertips brushed rotten leaves, the slick belly of something that recoiled. He couldn’t see her. Not even the shape of her.

Just the lightless brown and the heartbeat in his own skull.

He held the air in his lungs like a burning ember. It pressed outward, up through his throat, begging release. He clenched his jaw. It would not be long. He had never been good at this. She had always told him to breathe slow before going under, to make his lungs drink less greedily.

He had not listened. Now they betrayed him.

He tried to reach out through the Force, first the instinct was to track the troopers, but that task not being within his grasp, particularly in his panicked, breathless state, he focused smaller. He tried to picture the air above the surface, sucking it down, making bubbles he could bring to his submerged face and gulp into his thirsty lungs. Initially there was a disturbance at the water’s edge, but it didn't break the surface tension. He tugged harder, but he was making a ruckus that would have betrayed his location had a trooper been any nearer.

Above, light shimmered faintly through the surface. Not daylight. Lamps. They moved in pairs, casting narrow cones across the bog. Axl ceased what he was doing. Sometimes they passed directly overhead, scattering muted beams through the slop. He could not see the troopers’ legs, only the hints of motion, the erratic slice of white through brown water. Axl’s lungs began to scream. The urge clawed its way up from the center of his chest to his throat. He pressed his lips tighter, but the pressure bloomed behind his eyes. He opened them in panic, regretted it instantly. The water burned. His vision swam with colors and shapes, none of them real.

He needed to breathe. He needed to move. But he did neither. Not yet.

And then he broke, ascending, about to break the surface when Domi gripped him and anchored him back down. The troopers were on top of them.

The good news for Axl: He wasn't drowning

The bad news for Axl: He was suffocating.

Then the deceptive allure of the heavenly light calling him forth from the water forsook him, turning and receding. A moment more of Domi dragging him down.

They both semisurfaced. Their mouths and noses stuck out, but their eyes remained sheathed by the muck.
The swamp no longer hissed. Its chorus, once thick with chirps and croaks and the ceaseless splash of life, had muted to a breathless murmur. Only the thinnest ripple now betrayed where two heads punctured the surface of the bog, just their noses and mouths catching the open air. Everything else remained submerged beneath a film of fetid water and algae. The surface bent in oily rings around them, parted and shuddering with each exhale.

Axl felt his lashes glued together, swamp glue and sweat mingling. The muck pressed against his eyelids, sticky and dense, while the pitch of distant bootfalls vibrated the water. The lamps of the purge troopers arced through the fog, strobes of milky light painting the tree trunks in bursts. The sludgy water cupped his eardrums in an aching hush, as though the sound filtered through cotton. Domi beside him remained perfectly still. Her breath drew so faint he thought she had drowned.

His lungs burned. That raw heat, the panic impulse, pressed behind his ribs. His jaw trembled. He needed to breathe again. Now.

But the lights were close. Too close.

He reached inward.

The Force was not a flame this time. Not a river, not wind. It was the sensation of stone cooling in the evening. Of a body forgetting it had warmth. He did not pull from it. He did not bend it. He only opened.

Slower now. His heartbeat, once erratic, dulled to a slow percussion.

The water’s taste faded. The fire in his chest settled to an ember.

He sank deeper.

Not physically. Not yet. But his mind began to quiet, the pain softening beneath a blanket of stillness. His limbs floated. The bog’s resistance eased. Even the muck at his ears became tolerable. The swarm of flies buzzing over the surface no longer repelled him. His pulse, previously a war drum, now pulsed in muted rhythm with the Force.

Three minutes passed.

Then five.

Time stretched.

Fifteen.

Domi’s hand had drifted from him, but he could still feel her through the Force. Less a bright beacon, but a faint warmth, a presence held just below the waterline. He sensed her control. Her stillness.

But he had become stillness.

Twenty.

The stormtroopers passed overhead, their shadows warping the light across the water. Their voices crackled and faded. And still, Axl remained.

He felt the planet now. Strangely… this place felt like home. Not just the rot and the stink and the leeches. He felt its slow turning. The deep groaning silence beneath the wet earth. And he breathed it in, without lungs.

He no longer remembered what panic felt like.

The trooper’s gauntlet closed around Axl’s collar and yanked him free from the water. The boy’s ribs spasmed, his throat closed tight with the long withheld gasp, his head whipping back to stare into the voided visor of his captor. Before a grunt could reach his throat, before his body could remember to shout, his hand found the hilt that had never left his side…

[Darth Fett]

[Orb]
More than 500, less than 2900

Axl, AGE 15
PART 2
CONTINUED

…The crimson blade ignited with a hiss that shattered the illusion of stillness. Muck peeled back, flung aside in steaming curls. The saber roared to life, a rod of raw energy that caught the trooper at the hip and carved up through his chest with surgical wrath. No resistance, only separation. Sparks popped as the vibromesh underlay shattered, then the armor cleaved apart, and finally the man inside fell in two.
The two halves of the corpse slid sideways, steaming. Axl’s foot hit the shallow bank as the next bolt shrieked past his cheek. Another bolt spat from the trees. Domi had already moved, risen as if from the mire itself, fluid and savage. Her blade erupted in orchid light. Its swing sang like molten silk as it cleaved a blaster in half, then the throat behind it.

The swamp crackled with noise now. The hunt was no longer a secret. They could no longer be precious about blending in and not alerting any possible nearby Inquisitor.

Six beams lanced out from the trees, white hot and frantic. The canopy lit up like a crashing ship. Domi’s blade blurred, deflecting three bolts in a single twist of her torso. Axl’s saber rose to catch the next, returning it into the thigh of the trooper who had fired.

They moved together. No words. No signals. She dropped, rolling into the space behind him as he stepped forward, slashing diagonally to cover her movement. A boot splashed to his right. Without looking, Domi redirected a shot behind her and spun to intercept the sound. The tip of her blade took the trooper’s arm at the elbow. She reversed the grip and stabbed clean through his throat before he hit the ground.

The next volley came from higher ground. Troopers dropping from jump packs onto the ridge. Twelve meters up. The sound of their impact rattled the swamp floor. One descended, firing the entire way. Domi leapt, her blade pinwheeling through the air, cutting through the descending fire like it was made of silk. Her legs caught the trooper midflight, twisting him violently. His pack sputtered. They fell together. Her blade found the crevice beneath his chin as they hit the bog with a sickening, wet slap.
Axl flung himself into the opening she made. His saber caught another trooper's ankle midstride, biting through boot, tendon, and bone. The trooper screamed once, but by then Axl had already vaulted past, his saber dragging behind him in a wide arc. It severed another’s rifle, then the man’s forearm, then bit into his chest. The heat boiled the blood before it could spill.

A rocket screamed past, clipped the ground, and erupted behind them in a geyser of hot mud. Axl’s ears rang, his hearing faltered. Domi’s form remained sharp. She spun through the thick, smoky air, her blade dancing in perfect arcs. She carved another trooper in half, then pivoted and dragged the saber low, sweeping through a thigh and a knee with a single pass.

Axl rose to her back. Together they advanced, shoulder to shoulder, blades swirling. A coordinated wave of motion that betrayed no hesitation. He struck high, Domi low. She deflected the bolts that came for his unguarded flank while he turned a trooper’s helmet into molten scrap. His blade caught a rifle barrel, then the arm attached to it. Then it was gone Only the hiss of steam remained as the arm hit the water.
The troopers came in waves. Some from the ridge, some from the bog. All in black, faceless. Their visors gleamed in the torchlight, but they could not see. Not like Axl could. Not like Domi. The Force moved between the pair like a tide, pushing and pulling their limbs. One stepped forward. The other stepped back. Their arcs never collided, never crossed. Their proximity was neither threat, nor hindrance.

Domi fell into a crouch, feinting a slash to the left before launching herself forward into the kneecaps of a heavily armored brute. Her saber sang as it chewed through the plates, then she twisted and dragged it up, gutting the man from beneath. His rifle clattered uselessly from his grasp.

Axl’s chest heaved but his pace never faltered. He carved a wide horizontal path through three onrushing troopers. One managed to fire, but the bolt went wide, striking only a tree. Another raised a vibroblade, screaming. Axl’s saber turned, caught it midair, and with one smooth motion, slid down and cut through both wrists. Then, before the scream could build, the saber buried into the trooper’s chest.
Mud sprayed with every step. Blasterfire shrieked. Steam rose from severed limbs and shattered armor. The stench of burning plastic mixed with swamp rot and copper blood. Insects fled. The water frothed.
Domi grabbed a fallen rifle, hurled it overhead. Axl ducked without looking. The makeshift missile struck a trooper square in the chest, staggering him. Domi closed the distance, her blade spinning once, twice, then puncturing his lung with a hard twist. The hiss of breath left him through the glowing hole in his chest.

They moved deeper into the bog now, using the murky water as a veil. The high ground was lost, but so was the enemy’s range advantage. The trees hemmed them in, thick with root and vine. The troopers stumbled, slipping, dragged down by gear not built for such terrain. Domi exploited it first. She hooked her saber under the limb of a low branch and used the momentum to vault over a charging squad. Her blade caught one across the helmet midflip. The man went limp before he hit the ground.

Axl took the opportunity to rush in. His saber angled low, sweeping clean through a kneecap, then reversing and coming up through a groin. Another trooper screamed. Another bolt fired into the dark. None of it mattered. The pair were already gone.

Their bodies moved like apparitions. Here, then gone. One moment cutting through armor. The next melting into the swamp. The murk no longer slowed them. It aided them. The water turned red and brown and black.

Three troopers remained now, backs to one another, rifles raised, surrounded by floating bodies. One panicked and opened fire. His bolts struck only trees and bark and ghosts. Domi emerged behind him, her saber piercing his spine at the base of the skull. He did not fall. He simply stopped existing.

The other two turned in unison. Axl met their eyes. One raised a hand. Axl’s saber flicked forward, tip-first. It did not impale. It deflected the bolt that shot at Domi’s back. She acknowledged it with a slight turn of her heel, nothing more. Then she surged ahead, saber horizontal, carving through one trooper’s chest from armpit to opposite hip. The second screamed. He raised his rifle.

Axl caught the scream. He moved. His blade twisted through the rifle’s barrel, then through the hands that held it. The man fell to his knees, gasping.

Axl stood over him, saber humming. He waited. Domi approached behind, her blade trailing sparks as it sliced through a branch. The man stared at them, visors reflecting his own death.

He reached for his belt. Domi’s saber flicked forward. There was no belt left to reach. Only silence.
Then nothing.

Only the swamp remained, thick and breathing, its own stench rising to reclaim the bodies. Axl’s saber dimmed. Domi’s hand found his shoulder. Not as a command. Not as reassurance. Only confirmation.
The job was done.

The silence that followed the last trooper’s fall had weight. It clung to their skin, layered in sweat and swamp stench. Axl’s breath came shallow, his chest rising from the effort, the taste of ozone and blood clinging to the back of his throat.

Then his eyes lifted.
Behind Domi, standing unnervingly close, was the inquisitor.

The Shistavanen was lean and tall, fur slick with mud and heat. Her breath puffed visibly in the heavy air, nostrils flaring. One clawed hand curled around Domi’s throat, not choking, just pressing. Her lightsaber hovered at Domi’s neck, a slow-burning crimson line at the ready.
Before either could react, Axl’s and Domi’s lightsabers ripped from the waterlogged mire, dragged backward by the Force, spinning end over end before vanishing into the shadows behind the wolfwoman.

Domi stiffened. Her arms hovered an inch from rising. She would not gamble Axl’s life.
The Shistavanen didn’t speak. Her eyes didn’t need to. They were amber and fixed solely on Axl, waiting.
One breath, and it would be over.
Axl stood still, swampwater dripping from his sleeves. No blade. No plan.
He lowered his stance and reached. Not outward, but downward. Into the water.
The Shistavanen inquisitor's silhouette, backlit in fog and torch glow, glared above Domi with obscene stillness. Her lupine snout hovered inches from Domi's temple, the glint of her bared fangs made dull by the slick haze. Her claws gripped the side of Domi's neck, depressions forming beneath the tips, delicate skin stretched to rupture. The inquisitor's red saber pulsed at Domi's throat, its hiss softened by the humidity, its edges refracted across the surface of the swamp.

Axl did not move.
His own breath was caught behind his molars, not daring to pass. His saber, like Domi's, gone, stolen by the Force and sent clattering into the wet beyond.

But water surrounded them.

His mind drifted toward it. Not in panic. Not in rage. This was neither fire nor storm. This was control.

His perception dropped below his feet, into the soup of algae, blood, and rotted vegetal debris. The swamp was a slurry of decomposition. Filth. But buried in that muck was water, pure and ancient, older than cities, untouched by intention.
He focused. The Force did not pull. It sifted. Molecule by molecule, he reached for each fragment of H2O, ignoring the loam, the nitrates, the minute scales of organic decay. He separated nothing. He persuaded.

The droplets, scattered and disobedient, responded slowly. Suspended across the surface in minute collections, no more than pinheads at first, they trembled. The adhesion between water and waste fought him. But he insisted.
Not with strength. With patience.

He isolated a bead forming beneath the canopy, clinging to a low hanging vine. The droplet broke free and floated toward him, barely visible in the vapor-thick air. Another joined from a groove in the bark. Two more from the folds of a wilted frond. They met above his palm, hovering.
Axl centered his mind on their shape. The surface tension pulled each molecule into its neighbor. Left alone, they would collapse into earth, sink, be swallowed. But together, if persuaded, they chose cohesion. Each molecule longed for its kin.

The orb formed slowly, barely the width of a fingertip. Axl spun it gently, rotating the sphere above the surface. With each turn, it pulled more
of itself free of the muck. Each sliver of clarity separated from the sediment, forming spirals of brightness amidst the haze. The orb expanded.

His fingers flexed. He did not raise them. He could not risk alerting the inquisitor. But his mind tethered the water to his will.
The inquisitor had not noticed. Her focus was on Domi, her breaths coming slow and full through her narrow maw. Axl felt Domi's pulse still under her claws. Not panicked. Ready.

The orb reached the size of a cupped hand, now glinting in a hundred reflections. Within it, sediment still curled like ghost threads. He focused harder. The particles shivered, dislodged, and began sinking to the bottom of the sphere.
Axl fed the Force into the boundaries of the orb, reinforcing its membrane. The molecules along the outer layer bonded tighter, forming a skin of tension. A heartbeat, another, and the droplet expelled the last wisp of decay. It hung above the swamp, trembling with density and quiet momentum.

And still, he grew it.

More droplets lifted. They were cautious, as if afraid to abandon the warmth of the swamp. But one by one, they yielded. Each moved to the sphere in a line so thin it left no trace. The orb pulsed with life.

The Force guided the water. It did not command. Axl aligned himself to the inherent motion, the fundamental tendency of the molecules to form unity. Where most sith had commanded, Axl harmonized.

A new bead quivered on the back of Domi's shoulder. He pulled it free. Another curled from beneath his own hairline. They entered the orb with no ripple.

The bubble reached the size of his head.

The Shistavanen tensed. She adjusted her stance, weight shifting, and Domi’s knees bent. The predator did not notice the water hanging behind her, midair and waiting.

Axl's arm twitched, imperceptibly. With the motion, a breeze whispered through the clearing. The bubble dipped.
Now.

He sent a pulse forward. Not an attack. A distortion. A ripple in the swamp’s rhythm.

The inquisitor’s stance faltered. Her leg slid back for balance.

Domi dropped.

The claws tore free of her skin, leaving shallow rents that welled red. The saber swept downward.
The water struck.

Axl did not hurl the orb. He placed it. It landed on the Shistavanen’s head like a hood lowered in reverence. The surface of the orb accepted her skull without a splash, stretching, folding, then sealing itself tight.

She reared back, clawed fingers scrambling to tear it away.
Inside the bubble, her scream was muffled.

The sphere held.

She thrashed, stumbled. The saber arced wildly, slicing into the swamp and spitting steam. Axl stood, now moving with control, hand outstretched. The orb shimmered.

Bubbles escaped around the base of her throat as she tried to exhale, to expel the water in a surge of panic. But the orb held.
The molecules clung together with perfect unity, the Force feeding their cohesion.
Domi rolled aside, rising to one knee, blood streaking her collar.

The inquisitor dropped her saber. It hissed against the muck, the blade vanishing in the slush.
Her claws tore at the bubble, finding no purchase.

Inside, her amber eyes rolled in shock.

Axl stepped forward, palm still raised.
The orb shrank.
The molecules compressed. Not enough to crush, only to constrain. Her snout was forced shut. Her ears flattened. Her legs buckled.
The Force hummed through Axl’s bones. He felt the beat of each molecule clinging to its neighbor, refusing release.
The inquisitor collapsed to her knees.

Domi stood at last.

Axl let the pressure ease.
Not enough to let the inquisitor breathe.

Just enough to let her realize that she had lost.

The orb remained whole, hovering now as she fell backward, accusatory eyes welling up, adding droplets to her prison.

Domi walked to Axl’s side, her hand brushing against his wrist. Her neck still bled, but her gaze was calm. It was unspoken, but her touch clearly communicated the message they both knew was right and the only way forward… “end it.”

Axl’s palm remained raised.

The orb quivered, still gripped around the inquisitor’s head, its surface glassy and tense. Her body had stilled, but faint pulses of motion betrayed her shallow breath and involuntary twitches. Domi stood near, silent, her eyes fixed on the sphere.

He reached again through the Force, as a sculptor to fine ice. The molecules within the orb began to tighten. Not through compression this time. Through order. Through entropy reversed.

The surface dulled. The high sheen fractured, replaced by the first web of frost lines, spreading from the base of the skull up across the curve. They formed veins of lightless crystal, etched in silence. No steam rose. No hiss of rapid change. Just the brittle hush of transformation.

Axl narrowed his fingers.

The cold spread inward. The core of the orb began to shimmer with density, the water inside stilled beyond all vibration. Ice bloomed across the inquisitor’s snout, catching in her fur, pinning her ears flat against her skull. Her lashes iced over. The water in her breath, her saliva, her tears, seized in place.

The orb became opaque.

She did not move.

Axl turned his wrist.

The sphere responded. A slow rotation first, measured, deliberate. A single revolution. Then two. The inertia caught her hairline. Her chin. Her vertebrae.

The snap came quiet.
Her head bent the wrong way. No recoil. Just the sound of something giving in.

Axl did not stop the rotation. He quickened it.

The ice now spun fast enough to hum. A single blade of frozen edge, one irregular fracture near her jawline, caught the angle. The rotation sharpened it. The next moment, the cut happened. Not cleaving. Not ripping.
Breaking.
Her skull separated from the neck. A clean, angular fracture. Her body dropped in place, knees giving out. The orb rolled off her shoulder and struck the swamp with a dull plop.
It sank
The water accepted the weight of it without splash. Only ripples.

Axl lowered his arm.
Domi still stood silent beside him, blood drying against her collar. Her gaze remained on the body. Her blade had not been needed.
The swamp resumed its chorus.