Work Text:
How long will you run?
You’re not what you’ve become
Walking up there on a wire so high
You know there’s only one way down
I can’t save you now
Brother
-Sam Tinnesz, “Brother"
*****
Greez left Cal to stew in his anger alone in the back of the ship. He could not help but replay the argument in his mind, trying to reason with himself everything that had been said.
Or I’ll send you back to the Empire. No hesitation. Cal made a disgusted noise as he wrung the cleaning solution out of his gloves, twisting them up tightly enough to stretch the fabric past the point of repair. “Surprised you haven’t done it already,” he muttered to himself. “It’d give you enough money to pay off the Haxion Brood, which is why we’re even in this situation in the first place...” He tossed the glove off to the side and grabbed the other one. Angry muttering did not help anything, but it sure as hell made him feel better. “I don’t even understand why he’s so mad at me about all this,” he said louder, roughly dropping his hands onto the table. “I’ve got all this going on, he’s got gambling debts, and then there’s Cere, who I really don’t want to get into, but I don’t really understand why he’s acting like I’m the only one who- “
He glanced to the empty space beside the table, suddenly foolishly realizing that BD was not there.
Cal sighed and ran a hand through his hair. He’d probably ruined whatever semblance of a friendship he had with the little droid for good. BD no longer needed him, not with Cere and Greez, both of whom were going to leave Cal stars-know-where once they found the holocron.
Not that he could exactly be angry about the fact. No one had explicitly stated it, but he suspected that was where their association would end. Before, he might have helped her rebuild the Jedi Order, that batshit dream she’d drawn him in with, but now… well, he could not really blame her if she wanted to leave him behind. But for now, Cere still needed a Force-user. There were some things that did not concern the light or the dark. For now, she had one --- Cal, the Fourth Brother, or whatever.
Cal sighed again and shook his head. “Damnit,” he muttered under his breath. Every relationship he’d ever tried to build with someone had ended horribly. Maybe he should just stop trying.
He was cursed. He had to be. There was no other explanation.
Cal wasn’t exactly superstitious. At least, not in the way of curses, voodoo, magic, stuff of the like. But the pieces added up.
It had been there all his life. Cal had not been born at the Temple, and after everything the Imperials did to him, he scarcely recalled anything of his homeworld. He had grown up in a group of five or six kids, all part of the same small clan of people. Even through all the haze and smoke of the Imperial torture chamber, Cal remembered one boy a few years older than him who had been brought to the clan when Cal was very young. He liked to believe they were brothers. The peace had lasted for seven years before Cal had been separated from his brother, taken to the Temple by a Jedi.
Unlike the other Younglings, Cal had not spent his whole life at the Temple. The other Younglings had been quite afraid of him, the new kid coming in to ruin their lives. Of course, that also might have been due to the fact that Cal would yell at them in his native language, the harsh sounds a sharp contrast to those of Basic. In his mind, the Jedi had stolen him from his people and his brother. He had asked the crèchemasters to take him back home, but they had told them they couldn’t, that they would explain when he was older. Unfortunately for them, Cal was equally stubborn.
The behavior had continued for almost a month before they had finally broke and sat him down to explain everything. They had explained that his people were not accepting of the Jedi, that staying with them would have put his life in danger.
Cal had yet to come to complete peace with that fact, even as an adult. When he was younger, he had entertained the idea of finding his people once more, but that was nothing more than a fantasy. If he tried hard enough, he could recall some things from his life then, but the Empire had done a grand job of making sure most of the memories were nothing more than a haze. He did not know who they were, and he doubted he would ever be able to find them again.
He was lucky enough to have made a friend in Caleb. Like the other Younglings, Caleb had initially been hesitant to approach Cal, but eventually found it in himself to do so. For the remainder of their time as Younglings, they had been inseparable. Caleb had been a year older, but it had not made a difference. He had not been a replacement for Cal’s brother, but he had filled the same void. They had gone climbing, gotten into things they weren’t supposed to (those instances being on Caleb’s behalf), and had all around been menaces to society.
But eventually, Caleb had had to leave too. Cal had accepted that there would come a point where they would have to leave each other, but at least there was the chance they were going to see each other again. Even with the war, there was always a chance they would cross paths again. He had heard stories from the Knights and Masters where they would be partnered with old friends, Masters, and Padawans. He could only hope that would be them someday.
Of course, that would never come to fruition. Cal’s first life had ended the day of the Purge, gone down in flames with the wreckage of the Albedo Brave. He had left a piece of his soul behind there and emerged from the escape pod less than the person he had been, nothing more than his master’s lightsaber clutched in his hands, his final moments replaying over in Cal’s mind.
He had been forced to leave Master Tapal’s body behind. He had evaded the Empire for almost two weeks, gathered bits and pieces of information about what happened where he could, sheltering in the wrecked cruiser at night. He did not dare venture back to the pod, however. He had heard that the Jedi were traitors to the Republic, that they had tried to kill the Chancellor. That they were no longer to call it the Republic, but the Empire. That the Chancellor was now the Emperor. That all the Jedi were dead.
And that no one was going to come for him.
The realization did not come easily at the age of thirteen. He doubted that would have been different regardless of his age.
People older than he had been did not drag themselves back to the pod in an attempt to bury their master’s body, though.
It was a stupid decision, the one he cursed him for. It was the stupid decision. But he had not thought the entire thing through. After leaving the Temple, leaving everything he had come to know behind, he could not think of anything else to do. He had to bury his master. Master Tapal had died for him. It was the least he could do.
The Empire had been waiting for him to do exactly that, snatching him right off the ground, but not before letting him see his master’s decaying body. Eyes sunken into the skull, swallowed cheeks, paper-thin skin, already rotting from the moist conditions of Bracca. Maggots had already burrowed into his stomach, spewing out from his abdomen, dead organs exposed to the air.
The image was sharp, crystal-clear in his mind. It haunted him every waking moment from then on, the only thing he could see when he was thrown into a dark prison cell on an unknown planet, somewhere in a smoky fortress. There would be times when he thought he would vomit, but they had given him little food and only enough water to keep him alive. He could only violently dry-heave, spasms wracking his body as acid burned in his throat but nothing came of it.
Months or days or maybe even hours had passed by the time other Padawans had been thrown into the cell with them. He could no longer recall them, their names or faces. But he remembered their presence. The little band they had been, the bond they had formed. The foolish plans they had made to escape, despite them all being children and having no way of tearing through an entire heavily-armed fortress.
The dark-armored Purge Troopers would arrive and take them away from the cell, starting with the older teenagers and working their way down. Cal did not know where they went, but they always returned rattled and terrified. They would not speak, would not let anyone touch them. They were nothing more than shells of their former selves.
Eventually, they stopped coming back. The Purge Troopers would move on to the next oldest child until they reached him.
Cal remembered being but inches away from the chair when the memories flooded him. He had screamed so loudly before the claws even closed in on him, a sound that did not do justice to the pain and agony coursing like fire through his veins. He thought the scream might have damaged his voice permanently.
He was not sure how they found out about his psychometry. They would bring him objects, prized possessions, lightsabers, cloaks, anything that had once belonged to fallen Jedi. He would relive their final moments, feel death’s claws latching onto him and dragging his soul away into the unknown. There was a voice, emotionless and robotic, that permeated his subconscious, whispering to him how this would all go away if he just let go. When he refused to relent, the voice would get violent.
It tore him apart. Brought back all the memories of his family and his people, the Temple and Caleb, Master Tapal, the clones, the Albedo Brave, the other Padawans in the cell he had left behind. It ripped him apart, piece by piece, until there was nothing left of his life except for fragments, fractals that had once been a person.
When Cal had let go and slipped away, something else had taken his place.
They had kept him in the fortress for nearly a year afterward, training him to become something they called an Inquisitor. A Jedi-hunter. The Jedi were traitors to the Empire, so they had to die for their crimes. They had tried to kill the Chancellor, oppressed the good people of this great galaxy, imposed their will on the innocent. They were power-hungry monsters who stole children from their families, trained them to become their perfect little soldiers, erased all identity unless it was beneficial to their order.
He was not sure if he ever truly believed the Empire’s bullshit. But the thing that he was hungered for blood.
And, the Jedi had left him all alone, hadn’t they? Stole him from his people, threw him to the wolves. For that time, he saw no errors in the logic of the Empire.
The “training” had consisted of getting beaten to a pulp by the Purge Troopers until he learned their tactics and how to evade them. He had become an animal in those few months, with nothing more filling him than a desire to hurt, for those inflicting the pain to feel it themselves.
He was fourteen when he finally killed one of the Purge Troopers. From what he understood, every Inquisitor had their moment, the point at which Vader realized that they were worthy to join the order. He had gotten a hold of one of their electrostaffs and had thrown it like a spear, boosted forward by the Force. The Trooper had no time to react before it impaled his chest.
He had relished in the sound of cracking bones. It had felt like a high, and he knew it would not be long until he needed another fix.
He remembered feeling a warmth spread across his chest as he was approached by the robotic voice. He had not heard it since his time in the chair, had not seen Vader since then. Vader had given him the name of the Fourth Brother, the fourth to prove themselves worthy of the Inquisitorius. He had been given his own armor, his own helmet, and his master’s saber back under one condition.
The light within the crystal had broke underneath what he had become. It only took one kill to sully the soul so sourly.
Vader had then handed him of to a pale-skinned Pau’an whom he called the Grand Inquisitor, the head of the order. The Grand Inquisitor had been the one to introduce him to the only other two of their kind, the Second and Third Sisters.
The Third Sister’s disdain for him was obvious. Unlike the Second Sister, she was not helmeted. She looked him up and down and asked, “Is that all of him?”
He took a step forward, but the Grand Inquisitor moved between them. “Best not to get him riled up, Third Sister. We have business to attend to, and I would rather save it for our target.”
From then on, he had no other purpose than to serve the Empire and hunt down the remaining, traitorous Jedi.
His life had been misery, but oh, how he’d thrived on it. It did not matter to him how little the Empire or the other Inquisitors truly cared for his well-being, unless it was hindering his ability to work. They mocked his injuries, his hinderances, but he would do the same back. He cared as little for them as well. They were nothing more than a means to an end, just as he was to them.
The other Inquisitors saw their comrades as rivals. Competition for Vader’s approval or the Emperor’s attention. Their desperate, pitiful efforts to be seen, to stand out from the crowd, were all they were concerned with. Sure, the hunt was satisfying, but to truly be seen above all… well, that was the prize, wasn’t it?
The Fourth Brother did not get it. Was the cold fear gripping their prey in their final moments, the light fading from their eyes as they left this realm in the most painful, slow, unimaginable way possible, not enough for them? The other Inquisitors realized this about him, always finding ways of pushing his buttons, finding it funny when they finally set the animal out only to see what he really was.
They learned the limits of this after he had broken the Third Sister’s nose so horribly that it never sat straight again.
The attention they gave him changed once they learned about his psychometry, however. They had already given him the nickname dog before they knew about his bloodhound-like ability to track people, coined because of his animalistic kills and behavior. Really, they saw him as more of a rabid pet than a fellow Inquisitor.
He was fifteen-years-old when that changed. They had been on Kaller as part of a mission, a rare occurrence when the entire Inquisitorius was sent out together. It had been nothing more than a pitstop on their way to somewhere else (where exactly, he did not bother remembering). The Fourth Brother had been drawn away from the group, called by a powerful echo lost in the snow.
The Second Sister and Fifth Brother had trailed behind, although he paid them little mind, completely focused on the echo. He found a lightsaber hidden beneath the small ledge of a rock, victim to the elements, but not buried beneath the snow.
The wave of memories, emotions, everything that slammed into him sent him into one of the most violent seizures he had ever had. He had been victim to a few during his time in the crèche, before they were able to diagnose his psychometry. Nowadays, they were rare, with intense memories only bringing nosebleeds with them. He was not prepared for the complete loss of muscle control, his mind blitzing out, and being left in a state of complete vulnerability in front of two other Inquisitors waiting to take advantage of him.
He had come out of it when the Second Sister had ripped the lightsaber from his hand. He was barely back to himself when she spoke, “Interesting.” She tapped the side of his helmet with the saber. “How interesting.”
Her and the Fifth Brother had left him there in the snow. He had blacked out again, only to be awoken by someone removing his helmet.
It was one of Kaller’s locals, a young teenage girl. She placed his helmet aside, then lightly rested a hand on his shoulder, asking him something in a language he did not understand. He assumed if she was asking him if he was okay.
Which he clearly wasn’t.
He lunged up and grabbed her throat, slamming her to the snowy ground. Her breath left her in a terrified gasp. She scrabbled at his arm, nails tearing at his flight suit, chest heaving as she tried to draw in a breath. His hand only tightened around her throat as the living light faded from her eyes.
She stopped scrabbling, falling limp, eyes open and vacant. He shook himself, and the Fourth Brother let out a breath. He summoned his helmet to his hand and made his way back to the base.
The other Inquisitors stared at him once he arrived back, a hunger within their eyes, something he could sense even if they wore helmets.
“Well,” the voice of the Seventh Sister, the newest member to the Inquisitorius, said from behind, a hand on his shoulder, “I think someone has something he wants to tell us. I heard a rumor- “
The Fourth Brother grabbed her hand and spun, twisting it to the side. She let out a pained grunt and sunk to a knee.
“If you want to have a head to continue to hear those rumors,” he snarled, “you’ll keep your mouth shut.”
After the incident, he approached the Second Sister about it, on the defense, ready to attack, but she was prepared for it.
“You were going to do something to me?” She chuckled. “Everyone knows your little secret know. They’ll be waiting for you like wolves, ready to use you at any expense. But you don’t want that, now, do you?”
He did not answer.
She hummed. “That’s what I thought. I will keep you safe from all of them, but from now on, you will work closely with me. Everything you know, I know. Everything you see, I see. Your ability is mine. Understood?”
The Fourth Brother pursed his lips, staring her down through his visor.
“Understood, dog?” she demanded through gritted teeth.
He held her gaze for a moment longer, then bowed his head.
He was rarely sent on assignments by himself afterward, always accompanying the Second Sister. Under her, he became no more than a pet, an attack dog she sicced on victims because she knew he craved the feeling of blood on his hands. The name was figurative to the other Inquisitors, but she gave it truth. However, the Second Sister was true to her words. The rest of the Inquisitorius did not dare make a move against him. The only time he felt any of their wrath was in the one-on-one sparring sessions on Nur.
Vader eventually noticed their partnership and decided to separate them for a time. The Grand Inquisitor informed the Fourth Brother that he was becoming too reliant on the Second Sister and that he needed to once again prove himself worthy.
(Regardless if the Fourth Brother was the one who did all the dirty work.)
The Grand Inquisitor said that Vader had found an assignment he wanted reserved for the Fourth Brother specifically. “Although Lord Vader may feel differently,” the Grand Inquisitor said, having pulled the Fourth Brother aside into a private room and handed him the datapad, “I have no doubt that this will be a task you complete successfully. I take it you will not need the Second Sister’s aid in this?”
The Fourth Brother looked at the name on the datapad and steeled his reserve. “No, Grand Inquisitor. I don’t need her.”
“Of course. You are cleared to leave now.”
He was dispatched to an abandoned Separatists Lucrehulk, which had since been renovated into a trading station. Since he was sent alone, the Fourth Brother had the advantage of cover. The other Inquisitors liked grand spectacle, something to terrifying the people they were coming for. The Fourth Brother enjoyed that fear, but typically when it caught them on the unawares. The surprised burst of cold, like first bit of a rather strong fix of spice, and the absolute terror that followed as they had nothing to prepare for what was coming.
Although he had kept his head down (for how much he could, wearing the uniform and the helmet), the Lucrehulk was still in Imperial-controlled space. Even those who did not recognize what he was knew to move out of the way. It was not the most cover that he could get, but at this point, he did not feel comfortable stepping out of the uniform anymore.
The Fourth Brother eventually managed to slip into the ventilation system of the Lucrehulk, tunnels wide enough for him to army crawl through. One of the vendors, a Nitko, who traded in rare parts for antique ships was the one who had tipped them off about the location of a potential Jedi, a teenage boy a year older than the Fourth Brother who a vendor near him was sheltering. The boy had not been there long, holing up there while on a job. The Empire had eventually tracked down enough information to put a name to the boy, confirming him as one of the unaccounted for Jedi.
The Fourth Brother had found his way to the back of the Nitko vendor’s shop and jiggled the vent loose, pushing it to the side. The informant passed beneath him to a bench at the back of the shop. The Fourth Brother tipped forward, rolling out of the vent. He flipped over and landed silently in a squat. He slowly stood back up as the vendor turned back around.
A surprised bleat ripped from his mouth, but the Fourth Brother shoved a hand out. An invisible force blasted the Nitko back to the wall, pinning him there by his throat. He scrabbled aimlessly at his throat, legs kicking outward in vein.
“Wait- “he sputtered out. “They know you’re here- !”
“I’d expect so,” he replied calmly, dropping the Nitko. He fell to his knees, hacking for air. “Where are they now?”
The vendor drew in a heaving breath. “Their shop. Across the lane, right adjacent.”
The Fourth Brother turned to leave.
“Wait- “
He stopped. Tilted his head as he waited for whatever pitiful statement was about to leave the Nitko.
“You’ll- you’ll scare them away. Let me bring them here. They’ve no reason to be suspicious of me. It will be easier for you.”
He tilted his head the other way, narrowed his eyes. Oh, but he so loved the thrill of the chase. Weakening them enough just before they met their end. But, in the essence of discretion…
The Fourth Brother stepped back and allowed the Nitko to step out. However, before the vendor reached the door, he spoke --- “Shall you find yourself aiding them in any capacity, I will carve you into so many pieces that they will never retrieve all of you.”
The Nitko froze for a brief moment, then stepped out.
He waited, ducked around behind one of the shelving units pressed against the wall nearest to the door. Moments later, he felt two cold pinpricks at the base of his neck that were faint, but slowly grew in magnitude as two other people approached with the Nitko. The Fourth Brother focused in on them. One, he sensed was an aging man, but the other was far younger and human, like himself.
“Where are you taking us?” the Togrutan asked, voice clear even though a metal wall and several yards of distance separated them.
“To the back of my shop.”
“Why?” the teenage boy --- the Jedi --- demanded. The base of his neck pricked sharply as the boy’s fear spiked.
“They’ve already searched my shop. They’re going up and down the row.” The voice of the Nitko became louder as they approached the back of the shop. “They won’t come back here. Come on.” The door slipped open, and he dropped back into reality.
The two newcomers stepped into the backroom, a older Togrutan man and the young teenage boy. The Nitko closed the door and locked it behind him. He moved between the Fourth Brother and the two newcomers.
“Are you sure they won’t?” the boy demanded, his fear once again piquing. Smart. He knew something was off.
The Nitko turned to them, a mournful look in his eyes. “No. Because they’re already- “he cut off with a choked gasp, the blade of a red saber protruding through his chest. The Fourth Brother drug it downward to the base of his stomach, then yanked it out. The Nitko twitched once, then slumped to the floor.
The Fourth Brother glanced back and forth between the Togrutan and the boy as the smell of burning flesh filled the air. The Togrutan held an arm out in front of the boy as the Fourth Brother started toward them.
He had not made it far when the Togrutan let out a war cry and charged, the boy turning to run. The Fourth Brother flung a hand out, stopping the teenage boy midtracks just as the Togrutan collided with him.
He was slammed back into the wall, head snapping back, saber falling from his grip, the Togrutan’s hands around his neck. His breath left him in a gasp. The Fourth Brother reached out a hand as the Togrutan shouted for the boy to run, his voice muffled in the Fourth Brother’s ears.
A screwdriver hit his hand, and he jammed it forward, connecting with the soft flesh of the Togrutan’s right eye. A horrible scream ripped from his mouth. He dropped his grip, the Fourth Brother falling to the floor, and stumbled back, whimpering and tumbling to his knees. The Fourth Brother summoned his saber to his hand, ignited it, and swung.
The boy unfroze, letting out a noise somewhere between a sob and a scream, as the Togrutan’s head and body fell in opposite directions.
The Fourth Brother turned his attention to boy as he backed into the door. The boy’s hand barely grazed it, and it hissed open. He dashed out in the blink of an eye.
With a light chuckle, the Fourth Brother chased after him.
He chased after the boy, shoving around people, ducking through crowd, dodging security droids. The Fourth Brother was not sure how long the chase persisted, but he did not care. He enjoyed every minute of it, the cold washing over him as the boy’s fear grew and grew as he realized there was no running from this. That he had to choice but to turn around and fight. The fear always grew when they were literally fighting for their lives.
Nothing more than terrified prey to toy with.
They eventually found themselves in the engine reactor room, standing on the thin bridge stretching across the chasms below. The boy made it to the end of one of the bridges, stared down below, then turned back to the Fourth Brother, who was slowly advancing on him.
“Nowhere left to run!” he called. “Jedi! Going to continue to prove yourself a coward, like the rest of your kind?”
The boy steeled himself, reaching for two metal pieces clipped to his belt. He shakily placed them together, then raised it, igniting a blue lightsaber.
The Fourth Brother chuckled. “Cute,” he commented, then lunged.
He was right in his assessment. The boy fought like a terrified animal desperate to escape, desperate to live. His swipes, swings, and strikes were sloppy and unthoughtful, aiming for the critical areas of the body. The neck, the chest, the head. It was also apparent he had not picked up a lightsaber for a time. While the Fourth Brother had been compared to a feral creature by the other Inquisitors, at least he had some semblance of form.
Eventually, however, the boy managed to catch him off-guard, the Fourth Brother too confident and too caught up in his own abilities. The boy sliced him across the visor of his mask, his head snapping to the side with the force. He singed across his face, electricity sparking and dancing across his vision. The boy slammed a hand into his chest, and he went flying back, helmet soaring off with him.
He landed hard on his side several feet away, saber skidding out of his hand and deactivating. The Fourth Brother shook himself, blinking rapidly, and pushed himself up.
The tip of a lightsaber appeared in the corner of his eye. “Yield, and I’ll let you go.”
The Fourth Brother chuckled. “What?” He looked up to his opponent.
The boy’s face paled, mouth dropping. The cold fear turned to leaping shock in his chest, quickly replaced by denial.
“You’re gonna kill me?” The Fourth Brother scoffed in disbelief.
The boy stumbled back a few steps as the Fourth Brother got to his feet. His jaw worked, opening and closing as no words came from his mouth. Finally, he spoke, “Cal?”
He hadn’t heard the name in two years.
The Fourth Brother’s head cocked to the side, and he grinned. “Hello, Caleb.”
He was fifteen-and-a-half-years-old when he was sent to kill his best friend.
Caleb Dume’s hands were shaking so bad he dropped his saber, deactivating with a hiss. “C- Cal?” he stammered out. “Oh, stars, Cal- what- what happened- what- “
“Oh, wouldn’t you like to know?” he snarled. Dume flinched. “But you never would, no. Not the full magnitude of it all. Unless I took you back with me. But… “his saber flew into his hand. “That’s not what I’m here to do.”
Dume held up his hands, the denial morphing into a strange, sick sense of acceptance. “Cal, please, please don’t do this, you don’t want to- “
The Fourth Brother clenched his fingers. Caleb choked on his next words, not moving as the Fourth Brother closed in on him. He suspected that even with his hold on Dume, the other boy would be unable to move. “Please- “
He raised the saber and placed it against his chest as the horrific hacking noises emitting from Dume’s throat increased in volume. The Fourth Brother’s finger hovered over the switch, but it would not move.
His fingers twitched. The hold on Dume’s throat loosened, and he could breath again. “Please, don’t- “ he gasped out.
He tried again, to no avail. He searched Dume’s face --- so familiar, even after everything --- and the saber starting shaking in his hand. He swallowed, a thick lump moving down his throat, and steeled himself. This was his mission, his goal. He was here to prove himself. He knew what happened to Inquisitors who failed missions. He was handpicked for this, he could not go back, he has to do this, he could not disappoint, he could not go back to the chair, he won’t, he won’t-
His fingers went completely lax, and he dropped the saber hilt from Caleb’s chest.
Caleb unfroze and slumped forward, taking in deep, panting breaths while he remained frozen. Eventually, after several agonizing moments, Caleb looked up and rasped out, “Cal- “
He decked him across the face with the saber hilt. Caleb grunted and stumbled to the side, hand flying to his face. He looked back, blood seeping through his fingers. “What the hell, Cal- !“
“No.” His voice was small. “Don’t call me that… “
His indignance dropped immediately. Taking a deep breath, Caleb stepped toward him, free hand raised. “Cal- “
“No!” he shouted, raising the saber and activating it. Caleb flinched, the tip of the bloodred blade but inches from him. “I- I have to kill you! Or they’ll take me back.” He choked on a sob. “I don’t want to go back.” Not to the chair, the memories, the claws closing down on him. He shook his head, eyes clouded by unseen ghosts. “I don’t want to go back… “
Caleb dropped his hand from his face. The cut drug all the way across his cheekbone and was bleeding profusely, smudged across the side of his face. He wiped it off on his pants. “Just let me go,” he said, eyes on the saber. “You don’t have to do this.”
He let out an incredulous chuckle. Dume flinched. “I don’t have to?” He shook his head again. “You don’t get it. You don’t know what they’ll do to me. You- you’re just going to leave me again.”
Dume blinked. “What?”
“So many of you still alive… you all left me. And you’re just going to do it again, without a second thought. To save yourself.”
His face falls. “Cal, I didn’t know were still- “
He felt it. The unnatural, sharp, stabbing cold washing over them. It was invasive, crowding every corner of his mind, as if it were going to pick him apart piece by piece from the inside. Turn him inside out, know everything that made him tick, everything he was afraid of, the worst ways to torture him. The impending sense of doom, of knowing what was coming and having no way of stopping it. The feeling he craved within each and every one of his targets.
For he was the prey now, and the real predator was here.
He could see Dume felt it as well, but he seemed more confused than anything. He knew what the dark side was, but he could not place a word to it.
The Fourth Brother drew in a sharp breath, but choked on it. You have to do it. He started shaking, chest tightening, attempting to keep his saber leveled with Dume’s chest. I can’t. He made a pathetic whimpering noise. He’ll kill me. His vision blurred as each intake of a breath stuck in his threat. I don’t want to go back-
You have to-
I can’t-
You know what happens if you don’t-
I don’t want to do it-
He’ll kill you-
I don’t want die-
Then make a choice.
He made the wrong one.
Cal dropped the saber and fell to his knees, shaking, as the dark presence came closer and closer.
He was not sure when Caleb finally left. However, as Vader approached, he finally found the strength to pull himself to his feet and face the inevitable.
He was not prepared for just how small he felt underneath Vader’s eye. He wasn’t entirely sure what was underneath the mask, whether it was just a machine or some semblance of a man or a demon from the deepest voids of space or the dark side itself. But he knew the price of failure.
Vader already knew what happened, somehow. Cal had barely taken stock of the fact it was only Vader himself and the Grand Inquisitor before he was frozen into place, head forced up to meet Vader’s mask.
“You have failed me, Inquisitor,” was all he said before activating his own saber and slicing it upward.
Cal was dropped from the hold as his left arm, just below the bend of his elbow, fell. A horrible noise tore itself from his mouth, and he stumbled back, clutching what remained close to his chest.
Vader crossed the distance between them, haphazardly kicking Cal’s forearm off the bridge and into the abyss below. He only offered a whimpering Cal a dismissive air before spinning on his heel and stomping away.
The Grand Inquisitor moved into Cal’s view. Cal looked up at him, tears beading in his eyes. “Don’t leave me… “he begged. “Please.”
The Grand Inquisitor’s nose turned up. “It seems as if the rest of your punishment is left up to me. I could kill you, but you are far too valuable.” He thought for a moment. “Think of this as a test: Should you find your own way back to the Empire, we might consider taking you back. Until then… “he turned heel and moved away as well.
He did just that, a month later. During that time, he had managed to find a surrogate cybernetic arm that had once belonged to a droid in a scrap pile that had a grabber claw instead of a hand. He had also approached a surgeon about it, and when the man had said it would not be possible, the Fourth Brother had nearly choked the life out of him until he agreed to try. The surgeon had given him a limited amount of time before his body would reject the arm. The Fourth Brother had thanked him for the warning before slicing his throat open with the claw.
He arrived back on Nur much to the surprise of the Grand Inquisitor, who he had been lucky to catch before he departed for another of Vader’s missions. “Well,” the Grand Inquisitor commented. “You were always a persistent one.” He had taken the cybernetic claw into his own hand. “We will have you outfitted with a new one, and then I have one more test for you.” He motioned for the two Purge Troopers who had escorted the Fourth Brother in. They escorted him out and to the infirmary, where the surrogate arm was replaced. It had not set long when the Purge Troopers once again pulled him away, much to the disdain of the medical droid.
He was dragged through the Fortress until he reached a familiar entrance to the dojo, where he had been pitted against Purge Troopers and the other Inquisitors alike. The troopers had solved him inside alone. He had been in there for a few moments by himself before the doors on the other side opened, and a bedraggled human teenage boy was shoved in. The boy, whose clothing was pockmarked with burns he recognized to be results of the chair, glanced up, and his cold fear washed over the Fourth Brother
“Fourth Brother.” The Grand Inquisitor’s voice crackled through the speakers. He glanced to where the Grand Inquisitor was standing on the other side of the glass. “If you really want to prove yourself --- kill him.” It crackled off.
The Fourth Brother sighed and glanced back to the boy. He let out a nervous chuckle. “You- you don’t really want to do that, do you?”
The Fourth Brother’s head tilted.
“Come on.” He held his hands up in surrender. “I bet you’re like me, okay? You know what I mean by that. You don’t have to do what he says. You don’t want to make that mess.”
“These floors are already covered in blood,” the Fourth Brother replied calmly, unholstering his saber. “A little more won’t hurt.”
The boy’s fear spiked as his eyes flitted down to the saber. The fear turned to confusion as the Fourth Brother tossed the saber, letting it skitter across the floor to him.
He recoiled as it came closer. “What are you doing?”
The Fourth Brother clenched his left hand. “Giving you a chance.” He started toward the boy-
The panic set in over his opponent’s eyes, and his hand shot out, saber flying to it. The Fourth Brother hadn’t made it but halfway across the room when it landed in the boy’s grasp.
The boy’s eyes rolled back into his head. His whole body stiffened as if he were being electrocuted, and he fell to his knees.
The Fourth Brother recognized it immediately. He was psychometric, like him.
For a brief moment, he wondered if this was why the Grand Inquisitor had chosen this boy specifically. He had already failed to kill Dume, someone he had once called a friend. Would he hesitate for someone with the same rare ability as him?
He crossed the distance between them and knelt down, prying his saber from the boy’s lax fingers and set it aside. His eyes rolled back forward, and he came back to himself, his chest heaving. He met the Fourth Brother’s eyes, horror coming over his face.
Before he could scramble away, the Fourth Brother lunged forward and snapped his neck.
The boy’s body fell with a limp thud. The Fourth Brother stood back up and clipped his saber back to his belt.
“Pitiful,” the Grand Inquisitor said, appearing behind him. “Suppose he was good for something.” He turned to one of the Purge Troopers, who had also entered the room. “Take him to the chamber. Someone needs to be reminded of his place before we let him go again.”
“Hey, kid.” Greez’s voice comes over the speakers, drawing Cal’s attention. “We’re- uh- we’re almost to Kashyyyk if you wanna- uh- if you wanna strap in.”
Cal sighed and shook himself.
He was cursed. Or maybe he was the curse.
Either way, it seemed a good enough explanation.