**So, I'm rewriting the start of this. It got to the point where I wrote 80 chapters, and it was a complete mess. More plot holes than Swiss cheese, the direction was lost quickly after the first 5 chapters. So, I'm gonna try again, it didn't make a ton of sense to try and produce something that even confused me to the point where I was re-reading it multiple times. Sorry if you liked the start, it just wasn't working long-term. But, I've figured it out now, and I'm not moving anymore, so I can flush everything out and produce something somewhat ok. Also, sorry nothing's been uploaded, I just graduated from college, and moved across country, and my laptop broke in the move, so I haven't been able to upload, but I've been writing on my notes app. Also, rewrote the synopsis if you wanted to check that out. Alrighty, bye-bye.**
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"We are not born Mandalorian. We become it—through fire, through steel, through silence."
— Death Watch creed, recited before a rite of blood
Smoke curled through the shattered ridge like a serpent.
Ash fell like snow from the ruins of the old outpost above them, where fire still licked the sky and metal groaned under its collapse. Somewhere in the distance, a blaster discharged once. Then silence reclaimed the crater.
Kaelen stood barefoot on the blackened stone. The dust clung to his skin like a second layer of armour, painting him in soot and scars. His chestplate—too large for his wiry frame—hung loosely from his shoulders, a hand-me-down from a fallen warrior. His arms, though still adolescent, bore the subtle outlines of hardened muscle and half-healed burns. Thirteen years old. Lean. Dead-eyed.
In front of him, on his knees, was the prisoner.
A Republic scout, captured hours earlier. Strippearmourarmor. One eye swollen shut, blood drying across his face. His hands trembled behind him where they were bound, but his p, sture—like so many soldiers bef, re him, remained upright. There was no begging. No pride either. Only the kind of exhausted acceptance that comes after you've watched everyone else die first.
Three Death Watch warriors stood in a loose triangle around Kaelen, helms down, watching. Silent. Evaluating.
At Kaelen's feet rested a blade.
His blade.
A beskad, forged in the dark caves of Rauthar. Its edge was sharp but imperfect, still bearing the black heat lines of early smelting. No hilt wrap. No ornament. Just steel — brutal and honest.
The test had no name. No rules. No witnesses beyond the clan.
Just him. A child. And death.
Kaelen stared at the man.
He didn't see a soldier. Didn't see a prisoner.
He saw a moment.
One final breath in a string of thousands he had ended before. This was not his first kill. It was merely the first one that mattered.
He stepped forward.
The gravel crunched under his bare feet. The beskad felt heavier today, though not in weight, in meaning. In expectation.
He knelt without a word, levelling his eyes with the prisoner's remaining one.
The man looked back—not with hate, but something softer. Something Kaelen did recognise.
Pity.
That was new.
He drove the blade between the ribs in a cleaved arc. The beskad pierced flesh, slid through muscle, clipped bone. The scout gasped — a wet, gurgling sound — and slumped forward.
Kaelen held the blade in place for a breath, watching the light leave the man's eye. Then he withdrew it, wiping the blood on his already-stained tunic.
The corpse collapsed sideways, limbs twitching once before falling still.
Kaelen rose.
"You are Death Watch now."
Commander Drek's voice was a low rasp, filtered through his helm.
No one else spoke. No one moved.
Kaelen stared forward, not at the warriors, not at the co,se — but somewhere beyond. Into the smoke. Into nothing.
There was no pride. No fear. No satisfaction.
Only stillness.
One warrior stepped closer, offering Kaelen a gauntlet — an old piece of Mandalorian vambraarmourmor, scarred from years of war. A gift. A symbol.
Kaelen took it, strapped it on without a word, and turned away from the scene.
Behind him, the body still bled into the dirt. The others did not follow. Not yet.
He walked back into the smoke alone, the beskad still warm in his hand.
Not a child.
Not a warrior.
Not yet a ghost.
But already something the Jedi would fear.
The war tent stank of scorched metal and blood.
Converted from the remains of a Separatist dropship, the interior was cramped, rusted, and boiling with heat from a cracked coolant line. Holomaps flickered on jagged consoles. Gear was strewn across crates marked with blast scars and scorch lines — relics of too many battles fought with too few survivors.
Kaelen stood at the threshold, saying nothing.
Steam hissed from a ruptured wall behind him. The inside smelled of ash, grease, and iron. The kind of place no one lingered in unless they had to.
Five warriors were gathered around a tactical display table, including Commander Drek, his black-and-barmourrmor armour dulled from battle. His helmet sat on the table beside him, revealing a grizzled face with deep creases carved by both age and attrition.
"There he is," Drek muttered without looking up. "Our ghost."
Kaelen stepped forward, his boots silent on the scorched floor.
Varko, the oldest among the group, snorted. "You mean our liability."
"He's earned his spot."
Drek's voice was flat, almost bored, but firm. "Took down two Republic scouts during the last rotation. Alone."
Varko turned, his one eye narrowing. His cheek was marked with an old vibroblade scar that ran from temple to jaw.
"That was luck. Or cruelty. Maybe both."
"Maybe that's what war needs," said Jaei, the only one in farmourrmor, voice modulated behind her visor. "He's quiet. Efficient. Doesn't flinch. Better than half of your recruits."
"He's a child."
Varko jabbed a gloved finger toward Kaelen. "Doesn't even have farmourrmor. Just that hand-me-down plate and a blade."
Kaelen finally looked at him. No expression. Just that same unblinking staArmourArmor doesn't win fights," he said quietly. "Tactics do."
The table went still.
Jaei let out a short exhale — a laugh, almost.
"Spoken like someone who's already died twice and came back meaner."
Drek leaned forward, tapping the holomap. It showed a rocky stretch of highland ridges leading into a narrow canyon.
"Republic relay base is here," he said, circling the location with one gauntleted finger. "Lightly manned. Four to six guards. Two supply runners en route — ETA tomorrow at 0700. Medical crates. Ammo. Reinforcements."
"We intercept," said Jaei.
"No," said Drek. "We silence."
He turned to Kaelen.
"You take the north ridge. Quiet approach. Plant a charge here—"
He tapped a brittle ledge just above the comm tower. "When they scramble under fire, they'll retreat toward it."
"And then it collapses," Kaelen said. Not a question.
"Exactly."
Drek's smile was faint. Not warm. More like the flex of a knife before it draws blood.
Varko rolled his eyes and spat onto the floor. "We're gambling our mission on a boy with a knife and a death wish."
"We're gambling on efficiency," Jaei shot back. "And right now, that blade's got a better record than your last three cadets combined."
Kaelen stepped closer to the table, his eyes scanning the terrain overlay.
"They patrol in twos. If we hit the second pair first, the rest won't notice the missing round until it's too late."
Drek raised a bYou've. "You been watching their patterns?"
Kaelen nodded once. "Since last cycle."
"You planning to share that with us before or after the mission?"
"After," Kaelen said simply. "If I die, it's your problem. Not mine."
Silence fell.
Even Varko didn't speak.
Drek cracked a dry chuckle and turned back to the map. "He's cold. I like that."
Jaei finally unclipped a small detonator pack from her belt and tossed it to Kaelen. "Plant this. You'll need to fuse it manually. The remote's still spotty out there."
Kaelen caught it without looking. Tucked it into the folds of his ragged cloak. His hand brushed the hilt of his beskad.
"What if the Jedi show up?" Jaei asked casually, more to the room than to him.
"Then we bleed," said Drek.
"Then I run," said Varko.
Kaelen just stared at the map.
"Then I kill one."
This time, no one laughed.
Outside, the wind howled low across the jagged hills, whistling through the open cracks in the dropship's hull.
Kaelen stepped out into the firelit dark, the shadows swallowing him whole. His hand lingered on the beskad. Not for comfort. For habit.
He didn't want to be part of the mission.
He was the mission.
The cliffs above the canyon stretched like ancient scars, torn open by time and war. Jagged, cruel, indifferent. Below them, the Republic relay station flickered in the dark — a pale glow in the bones of the mountain.
Kaelen crouched beneath a frost-bitten overhang, half-shrouded in mist. The wind keened low through the rocks, carrying the scent of snow, oil, and distant blood. His macrobinoculars scanned the ledge: two guards. Same rotation. Same mistake.
"South approach in position," came Jaei's voice through the comm. Her tone was bored, like this was routine.
"Drek's set near the vent grid. Charges ready. Your move."
Kaelen didn't reply.
He didn't need to.
He was already gone.
He moved with the silence of someone who had learned long ago that noise invites death.
His breath cslowlyslsteadilyeady. His fingers found handholds carved by time and weather. The rock face cut his palms, but he didn't wince. Blood was just heat leaving the body.
Halfway up the ridge, he paused.
From here, he could see everything — the narrow approach, the tower's flickering perimeter lights, the guards too focused on their patrol routes to watch the shadows above them.
They were complacent.
Kaelen felt something inside him, en — not excitement. Not anger.
Purpose.
This is the only time I feel still.
Not at rest. Just… quiet.
He reached the ledge without a sound, rolled low into the shadows, and exhaled.
The first guard was only meters away. A human male, younger than expected. Helmet off. His rifle dangled lazily from its sling as he leaned against a cracked support beam, gazing up at the stars like he was anywhere else but here.
Kaelen moved.
One fluid step from shadow to kill.
He slid behind the man, caught his mouth with one hand, and drove his beskad beneath the ribs and into the heart. The blade found its mark with a soft crunch. The guard twitched, boots scraping weakly against the gravel.
Kaelen eased him down without a sound, laid him flat, and closed the man's eyes.
Not out of pity.
Out of discipline.
The second guard stepped onto the bridge just as Kaelen turned.
He blinked. Saw Kaelen. Mouth opened to shout.
Kaelen darted forward, low and fast.
The guard brought up his blaster—
Kaelen was inside his arc before the weapon cleared.
He caught the rifle barrel, twisted, and snapped it downward, cracking the man's wrist in the process. The guard screamed.
Kaelen drove an elbow into his throat, silencing him, then spun and plunged his dagger into the base of the skull.
The man crumpled like wet paper.
Kaelen retrieved the bodies, hauling them behind a vent unit stained with oil. He was breathing faster, now, but not from effort. From awareness. From the deep, coiled feeling in his chest, that this mission was going too clean.
It always breaks at the clean part, he thought. Always.
He moved to the cliff edge overlooking the narrow escape trail — the kill zone.
From his belt, he drew the compact detonation charge Jaei had handed him hours ago. Basic mould. Two-punch impact The timermer crystal l slightly chipped.
He crouched at the overhang, fingers searching for a crack in the stone. Found onSlidelid the charge in and locked the seal.
Flint-spark. Fuse lit.
Thirty seconds.
Kaelen turned and sprinted across the ledge just as blaster fire erupted down in the canyon.
"Engaging now," came Drek's voice.
"Kaelen, move—timing's tight."
He didn't reply.
He was already gone again.
The relay post lit up as if waking from a nightmare. Red lights pulsed. Shouts filled the comms. Republic guards scrambled from the interior bunkers, returning fire toward Drek's position.
Exactly as predicted.
Exactly as planned.
They bolted for the trail. Toward the blast.
The explosion tore the ridge apart.
A roar of fire and rock split the mountain's spine. The ledge collapsed beneath the retreating soldiers, sending them tumbling into a pit of debris and flame. One tried to leap clear, caught midair by the blast and turned to ash before he landed.
Kaelen didn't watch them fall.
He was already moving past the edge, slipping through the smoke.
"Clean hit," said Jaei. "Path's clear."
"Confirm exfil," Drek ordered.
Kaelen clicked his comm once. Confirmation.
But his stride slowed.
He felt it before he heard it.
The air shifted — grew thinner, tighter.
Kaelen froze mid-step.
The mountain felt... wrong.
Like something alive had turned its eyes toward him.
That's not the wind.
He dropped to a crouch, scanned the ridge—
And then he felt it.
A pressure in his mind. Not pain. Not emotion.
Just... presence.
Six of them. Approaching fast.
Not Death Watch.
Not Republic.
Jedi.
"When the Jedi came, they didn't save me.
They didn't see a child.
They saw a weapon that wasn't theirs."
— Kaelen Vizsla
The mountain groaned.
Dust curled off shattered ledges. Ash swirled in chaotic spirals as if trying to flee.
Kaelen pressed his back to the cold stone, beskad in hand, body coiled like a spring. His heartbeat was steady. His mind — calm.
But his senses burned.
He could feel them.
Moving closer.
Not stumbling. Not searching.
Hunting.
He peeked over the ridge.
Six Jedi.
Robes dark against the white sky, sabers still holstered — but hands low, ready.
Toosynchronisedd. Too quiet.
One of them knelt by a Republic corpse.
The others fanned out.
Kaelen's nostrils flared.
They think I'm scared.
I've been fighting since I was five. I've killed more men than they've trained. They don't know what I am.
He inhaled once. Sharp and clean.
Then dropped into the canyon.
He hit the ground running.
The closest Jedi didn't even hear him until the beskad cracked across his helmet.
The blow sent the man reeling, visor shattered, sabre half-drawn—
Kaelen drove his shoulder into the Jedi's chest, tackled him into the dirt, and slammed his elbow into the man's throat.
A second Jedi shouted, drawing a green blade.
Kaelen hurled his vibroknife at her — it caught her in the shoulder, forcing her back—
He rolled toward his beskad, scooped it up, and ducked under a sweeping blue arc.
Three Jedi now surrounded him, sabers lit.
Their forms were textbook — Form III, tight grips, careful spacing. Professional.
Kaelen moved like smoke.
He baited a strike, then countered with a reverse parry, letting the beskad glance across a saber blade before cutting upward into a thigh.
A scream followed. Blood.
The Jedi staggered.
Another lunged — Kaelen sidestepped and let the blade carve sparks off his chestplate.
He slammed the pommel of his beskad into the Jedi's jaw.
Tooth. Blood. Collapse.
Then came the fourth.
The Togruta. Fast. Commanding.
She fought like she'd done it a thousand times. Arcing strikes. Precision steps. Her saber was a blur.
Kaelen parried once, twice—
The third blow knocked him back—
She spun, blade over her shoulder for a kill stroke—
Kaelen ducked inside her arc, pressed into her blind spot, and slashed—
The beskad sliced clean across her sidarmourmor saving her from disembowelment, but not from the pain.
She fell hard.
They're slowing. Breaking. This is what war does.
It ruins perfect stances and textbook footwork.
But he was breathing harder now. The hits were adding up. His arm stung. His legs burned. He couldn't keep this up forever.
Then he felt it.
The Force.
It didn't strike — it coiled.
Before he could react, it seized him mid-motion.
He twisted to break free, but it was like slamming into a wall made of gravity and silence.
He couldn't breathe.
Couldn't move.
He hit the stone like a dead weight. The beskad flew from his hand, skittering into the shadows.
Boots approached.
The fifth Jedi — a man in golden-lined robes, calm, older, unarmed.
"He's resisting," muttered one of the others. "His mind is shut. Like a vault."
"He was trained to kill Jedi," said the Togruta, rising slowly, holding her ribs. "And almost succeeded."
"That boy doesn't fight like a boy," added another, voice shaken. "He fights like a… ghost."
The older Jedi stopped a few paces away, gaze unreadable.
"Kaelen Vizsla," he said, calm. "Of Death Watch."
Kaelen lifted his head. Blood ran down his cheek. He glared with hollow fury.
"You know my name?"
"We've been watching Mandalore for a long time. We've seen the camps. The recruits. The indoctrinations."
A pause. "But not many… survive long enough to speak it."
Kaelen spat blood.
"I don't want to speak."
"Good," the Jedi said. "I'm not here to listen."
Kaelen surged forward — raw fury behind it.
The Force slammed him down again. This time harder.
He coughed, body trembling under the pressure.
I will not scream.
I will not kneel.
I will not break for them.
But something inside cracked.
Not bone.
Not will.
Just… belief.
In the cause.
In the war.
In the men who had raised him to kill and be killed.
The beskad was gone.
The warriors were dead.
And the sky was full of strangers with power he couldn't match.
For the first time in his life—
Kaelen Vizsla felt small.
"Take him," the Jedi said.
"To the Temple?"
"To containment. He's not ready for peace."
The Force wrapped around Kaelen like a cage.
As they lifted him from the ground, Kaelen's vision blurred. The sky above was pale and endless, the stars gone, the war reduced to wind and ash.
He didn't speak.
Didn't resist.
But in his chest —
Something dark and quiet began to burn.
Not hatred.
Not revenge.
Resolve.
They think they've won.
Let them think that.
They'll never see what I become.
The ship was silent, but it wasn't peaceful.
It was the kind of silence that pressed in around Kaelen's ears — sharp, clinical, humming with tension just beneath the surface. Every panel of durasteel, every breath-filtered gust of recycled air, was artificial. Cold. Dead.
Kaelen sat alone in the centre of the detention chamber — knees bent, wrists cuffed, ankles bound. His body was still bruised from the fight, muscles sore from the Force slams, but his posture was upright. Balanced.
Not relaxed.
Just… waiting.
The cuffs didn't bother him. Not really. Neither did the shock collar — heavy, yes, but he'd worn worse restraints in Death Watch trials. And the Jedi watching him from the corner of the room? No different from the guards he'd once slit throats beside.
The only difference is that they hide their fear behind pity.
Death Watch never pitied me. They just bled beside me.
He kept his breathing shallow. Small. His eyes tracked every flicker of movement. Every vent cycle. Every shift in temperature.
The cell wasn't meant to restrain him.
It was meant to make him feel restrained.
Control the environment. Control the subject.
That's what the Jedi believe in.
That control is peace.
He would learn to hate that word.
Across the force-sealed chamber, behind a transparency field of faint blue energy, sat Master Talrun in meditation — spine straight, hands resting on his knees, not quite facing Kaelen, but not ignoring him either.
He's not watching me with his eyes. He's listening with the Force. Feeling for cracks.
Kaelen clenched his fists.
They all do that. They reach into your head before they ask your name.
At some point, the door hissed open. A female Jedi Knight, younger than Talrun, stepped in carrying a tray with a sealed ration pack and a flask of water. She looked at Kaelen like one might look at a wounded animal — not scared, not disgusted, just... distant.
She placed the tray near the cell boundary.
"You haven't eaten," she said gently.
Kaelen didn't answer.
"It's just food. No sedatives."
Still nothing.
She lingered for a moment longer, then spoke softly.
"I saw what you did to Knight Hale. You could have killed him."
Kaelen finally looked up.
"I still might."
The woman flinched — just a little.
"You don't have to be like this," she said. "You're not surrounded by enemies anymore."
"Aren't I?"
She didn't answer. Just turned, stepping out of the chamber as fast as protocol allowed.
Minutes passed. Or maybe hours.
Time blurred in places like this — bright lights that never dimmed, air that never changed, stillness that made every second feel like a held breath.
Kaelen stared at the sealed flask.
Then, without a word, he tipped it over with his boot. It rolled away, thudding softly against the wall.
He went back to silence.
Then came Talrun.
The older Jedi stood, passed through the barrier, and approached Kaelen with hands visible and robes loose — the picture of calm.
"You're aware of what's coming."
Kaelen tilted his head.
"Judgment?"
"Assessment."
"Same thing. Just with more words."
Talrun almost smiled.
"You speak like someone much older than thirteen."
"War ages people."
"Yes," Talrun said quietly. "It does."
He crouched — not too close, but close enough to look Kaelen in the eye.
"I know what you think this is. You think you're being turned into something. Rewritten. Contained. Maybe even erased."
Kaelen didn't respond.
"But we don't want to strip away your fire," Talrun continued. "We want to give it form."
"No one gives me anything," Kaelen muttered. "Not anymore."
"Then maybe we offer the one thing you haven't had."
"Which is?"
"Choice."
That made Kaelen pause.
Just for a second.
But he didn't show it.
"The Temple will ask what you want," Talrun said, rising slowly. "If you don't answer… they will choose for you."
Kaelen's jaw clenched.
"Then I'll break what they build."
Talrun gave a long, slow nod.
Not disapproving. Not condescending.
Almost... respectful.
"If you can," he said, and turned toward the door.
The chamber returned to silence.
Kaelen sat in the middle of it all — bruised, bloodstained, surrounded by light.
And all he could think about was the dark.
Let them dress it in robes.
Let them shine their lights.
Chains are chains — no matter how gold they look.
I will learn. I will watch.
And when the time comes...
I will decide what I will become.