From space, Malachor seems no more than a lifeless ball of ash. In the center of an open crater, however, lies the ancient Sith Temple. This colossal pyramid of black stone is the relic of a disastrous battle between the forces of darkness and light thousands of years ago.

Though the surface of Malachor has a breathable atmosphere, the air is dead still, and there is no sign of life. The caldera housing the Temple is a tableau of the terrible struggle that took place here so many millennia ago. Scattered through the causeways and crumbling boulders are the petrified figures of the foregone combatants, their hands raised eternally against whatever cataclysm took the life from their bodies. Some still grasp their Jedi weapons, though most likely the life is gone from them too. The pallid white light of the sun spreads unhindered through the crater, but it does little to illumine the intrinsic darkness of the stones.

The Sith Temple is not a place of the light side. It is said the very stones react to the touch of the dark side. The pyramid itself is seemingly inaccessible, though its blocked entrance is associated with an old saying: “Two must lift these stones, no more, no less.” Despite its undeniable age, the crater is littered with signs of a more recent calamity; ash and debris, columns toppled outwards from the Temple, broken arches. It is as though the millennial dust stirred, briefly, then returned to its repose under the sun.

Fenrir was on the hunt.

He didn't have a pack, but he did have the shadows. He was one with them, stalking silently across the wastes and into the crater of the temple below. The corpse-pale sun had sunken low and listless, the air still as a grave, tasting like so much death on his tongue as his jaws hung open, scenting.

There was the taste of prey, amidst all this ash and nothing. Something or someone living was here; he'd caught their scent the moment he'd disembarked from the Plagueian shuttle that dropped him into Malachor's dunes, a hunting beast to track down anything they liked. And Fenrir was more than happy to be their beast, to be their monster. Saliva dripped around his fangs in anticipation of replacing the wretched coating of stale dust in his mouth with hotbloodlifepreykill.

Fenrir dropped low and silent from one outcropping of slate to another, and another, and then down to the basin's floor, not even allowing his claws to click. He made no sound, wrapped in natural shadow and in a cloak woven of the Force as he drew on the Dark, creeping through the crags like a specter of one of the fossilized figures around him. His nose guided him, closer and closer to the temple, weaving around the ancient battlefield, until his predator's gaze landed on his prey.

It was a humanoid, brightly colored like a bush and bedecked in armor and weaponry, including a lightsaber, further confirming what his senses had initially hinted before. The man — for his scent revealed him as male — knelt several meters before the pyramid, perhaps meditating, perhaps searching for something. Fenrir cared not for his prey's wants. Only for the hunt.

He reached out into the ether, trying to smother the man's connection to the Force, but it was difficult. Like trying to focus on one speaker in a roaring crowd, a thousand-throated voices all crying and screaming and singing around him, whispers and hisses and chants. The Dark was in every stone here, in every step. He flexed his claws and felt it, felt it like an ooze that came away where he scratched at the rock. Concentrating hard enough to find that single voice in the cacophony and then to silence it was agonizing but doable for one trained as he was. It throbbed behind his eyes, shook in his skull as he crouched unmoving.

And then— there!

Like a black star breathing. The man was an immense wellspring of seething energy, and hunger licked in the Plagueian beast's stomach at it even as his fur raised along his back in adrenal alarm.

Focusing, Fenrir divided his attention between crushing that connection and ghosting closer, bunching his muscles, poising to strike. He pressed, watched the lines of the man's body tense while surely his abilities were snuffed out, and then leapt.

But that star didn't flicker out. It only sputtered, and even as Fenrir lunged with claws extended, the man spun up from his seat with a shout and a brilliant beam of blue unfurled.

There was no stopping his momentum, nor any thought of it. Fenrir fell upon the man, and that blade rose towards him.

Instead of pain or the pleasure of tearing into flesh, there was only him slashing at air as the man darted back, and a shrieking crackle as his personal shield generator overloaded and died, saving him from being rent in two, if only just. The burning golden eyes of the green-skinned man widened from narrowed slits and died to royal purple as he beheld Fenrir, certainly thinking, as all did, of what a particularly massive monstrosity was before him. Instead of exclaiming in horror, however, the man leapt back again in a bounding, amplified arc and pointed at him harshly, clicking his tongue.

"Are you insane? I could have just killed you! This is a lightsaber— you can't just charge someone with one of these with your bare hands!"

Was this small humanoid...concerned for him? How laughable. How odd. Fenrir barked a chuffing of laughter.

"I...can…" he growled out slowly, licking his chops and raising his hands, claws splayed. "You...shall come...with me…"

The man was perhaps not what his handlers had intended him to find, but he was a find, and moreover, he was powerful, as Fenrir could sense. Surely he would make an excellent addition to the Dread Lord's forces, or the interrogation rooms, whichever the masters decided. Fenrir's place was not to consider such things, but to hunt.

Live prey was much better than any old artifact.

"Go with you?" echoed the man, stance tensing again. His feet shifted in the dust, body lowering slightly, and he raised that saber overhead, horizontal to the ground. His violet eyes flashed again to gold, burning right back at Fenrir's molten red, and his humanoid lips bared blunt teeth in a sad, silly little snarl. "I'm not going anywhere with you, whoever the frang you are. Final warning— back off. I don't wanna fight you. Especially not here."

"But I...want fight…you," the Sith beast rumbled, a smile tugging at his jowls, showing his razor maw, and launched himself forward in a Force-enhanced, savage tackle. Once again his prey slipped away, quick and agile as a serpent, and just as infuriating to a wolf. Fenrir bellowed a roar and lunged again, claws swiping, teeth snapping shut inches from the man's neck before he darted around the hulking Shistavanen and vaulted up onto a shelf of rock, flipping onto another. Then another, and another, climbing towards the caldera's edge. Was he trying to flee?

As much as Fenrir loved a chase, he was here for a fight. He threw out a hand, concentrating only a heartbeat before his invisible grip closed around his prey and yanked him back. He would drag him to the ground and then be upon him to rend and tear and maim.

But even as he caught the man, he felt it— the Dark surged in his opponent, a supernova in skin, and the humanoid actually broke free of his telekinetic grasp, falling to a broken archway. He landed with ease, bounding up again in quick-step to reroute his trajectory once more. Alighting atop a jut of rock, he turned to face Fenrir, lifting his hands, saber and all.

"I warned you to back off," he shouted, and as he spoke his eyes burned a little brighter, black lines of veins popping around his eyes along with all those other black markings. The rock beneath the beast's feet rumbled. Dust shook free of statues and the walls alike, plumed along the floor as a multitude of small stones lifted into the air. Higher and higher, suspended.

Then, the man gave another shout, thrusting both palms forward, and the Force howled to Fenrir as the debris ripped towards him.

Fenrir is all about survival. He's stubborn enough to never take no for an answer. He'd rather hit back till his foe can't. When this tiny Sith hurtled innumerable small at him back by the power of the Dark Side, he knew what to do and how to do it.

He concentrated only for a second, even as the stones hurtled at him at breakneck speed under the gloom of the Sith pyramid, under the blood-red dark sky, and the pitch-black ground. Seething in a slowly-building rage like and unstoppable furnace, he sped away to a side, the Force fueling the beast's body and giving him superhuman speed. Even as he sped away thus to safety, his furred ears picked up the myriad sounds of the stones thudding to the ground.

With a feral grin that would have made anyone of lesser resolve jump out of his skin, he turned on the upstart human. Clearly he was stronger than him, else he could not have had so easily broken free of his Telekinetic grip, and that angered him. Fenrir now knew that this was a foe that won't fall with a head-on assault. The man was stronger than him. The hunter had to do something else. Hell yield the ground for now, only to tear this irritating human limb from limb later.

Ruka still glared at the retreating beast from where he stood. His gaze was not of fear, but the gaze of one observing something irritating. This mindless beast came out of nowhere and destroyed his meditation before the Sith Temple! And...why would the beast want to capture him?

A few meters away, the Shistavanen concentrated for a few seconds, and vanished from view completely. Cloaked with the Force, he circled around his prey very slowly, waiting for a chance to strike.

Ruka was no fool. He knew the beast was still there and was using the Force to shroud itself. Instinctively, he started searching through the Force for his opponent. At first, he could not detect anything at all. But that's impossible, Ruka knew! He focused more to sense out the beast, and on this second attempt, he could detect a faintly suppressed Force signature. Yes, so the monstrous wolf was still there. But where is it and what's it waiting for?

Suddenly, the Force screamed out a warning. A lone rock hurtled at him from his right with unnatural speed. With the deft stroke of a Master, he blasted the rock with the sudden tendrils of Force Lightning.

But the next moment, he knew that was a mistake. Fenrir was not in front of him, but behind him. Even with the warning from the Force, it was too late. Shrouded and unseen, Fenrir had scaled the pyramid and stationed himself just above him. Using Telekinesis, he used the rock to fool his prey. Now was his chance to strike!

He blasted the Human at almost point blank range. The Human was only a split-second too late and caught the full force of the lightning on his right side and chest as he was turning. Ruka fell on the floor before the Sith Temple, knowing that the beast would be on him soon. He needed to do something quick.

His prey was down, and Fenrir was ready for the kill.

The air shivered with the ionized aftershocks of lightning, clinging to his skin, making him shiver in mimicry of the agonized twitching of the humanoid below him. Excitement howled in his veins just like he howled in victory, leaping from the pyramid's precipice and descending towards his prey's exposed back.

The man jerkily rolled away. The beast's talons scraped singed cloth. Their eyes met in the space of a heartbeat, him crouched, the other on his back. His prey raised both hands. Fenrir opened his jaws. And then—

And then there was darkness.

Darkness. Utter darkness. Deeper and more impenetrable than even the dead heart of Malachor itself. No slow thing, the light dying dim in the caldera like the fires of long, long ago, no fade out of the sky that was red to his eyes, no. Just one moment, the world was there, and then he was blind.

A flutter of sound, scuffling of stone and cloth, and pain sliced in a lick across his arm. Another step, and then again, on the other side. Aiming for something? He did not know, but he could not see. His enemy was circling him, then retreating, then...then what?

The beast howled, furious, confused, something visceral in his very bones almost whimpering. A predator without sight was weak. Weaklings were killed, left for dead outside their dens or slow to die of starvation while their stronger betters nipped at their heels. The whimper in his marrow rose to a whine in his throat, and he panted in a breath, and—

—and tasted life, still.

There.

Fenrir's brief moment of panic fled, chest expanding, teeth sinking into his own tongue, a promise of more flesh to come; for though his eyes failed him, his nose did not.

He could smell his prey.

The beast of Plagueis followed the scent and lunged. His claws lashed out, snagging beautifully in cloth and hooking, dragging, gouging through hot flesh. He felt blood wet his fur and howled, drowning out a shout of surprise and pain.

The darkness flickered, then disappeared as if it had never been. His vision winked back, and before him was the recovering little man, bloodied, holding a short violet blade and his lightsaber. Fenrir bellowed and attacked again, and his prey vaulted away in a superhuman leap.

The predator followed, channeling strength and speed into his own hulking frame, but the other was faster. Their chase spanned the chasm, passing the pyramid and trampling graves, the little man gaining more and more distance. Fenrir snarled, feeling rage bubble up in his throat as his opponent landed on a fallen column and suddenly spun around, dropping his weapons and lifting his hands.

The Shistavanen's instincts screamed nearly as loudly as did the Force in warning.

Bright blue-white light suddenly erupted from the humanoid's fingertips in a torrent. Arcs of lightning gouged black burns into the rock, carving their path straight towards Fenrir. There was nowhere to run, no way to dodge, he imminently knew. The storm bared down on him, ready to obliterate.

But then the storm stopped before it touched him, gone as suddenly as it had come.

"...no, ay…" he heard the man saying across the distance separating them. "No, I'm not doing this. This kriffing place won't make me and neither will you."

He smelled like rancid fear, a sour thing not even the smokey, charged taste of slagged rock could cover up. Was he afraid of his own power? Power that had just razed the very earth between them? Pathetic. Weak. The little humanoid was no alpha. Not even a predator. Just sad prey.

"...weak..." Fenrir growled at him, coughing out a chuff of amusement.

"Not even close," shouted back the humanoid, as if the beast cared. He only wanted the thrill, and he got it as the man changed tactics, throwing his fist forward. A telekinetic hammer blow followed it, throwing over fossilized Jedi and Sith alike, but not the Shistavanen; Fenrir leapt aside quickly enough around the attack. He roared in excitement and dashed forward on all fours, springing off the ground to plow into his prey, who backpedaled rapidly to avoid evisceration, clumsily unsheathing a short dagger and sword.

The humanoid threw the emerald knife at him, but Fenrir was faster, jerking aside and slashing again. His claws caught on the sapphire blade his prey held in a reverse grip, struggling to bear the predator's strength and weight bearing down on him. His opponent's back hit a crumbling pillar, and the beast crowded him there, cornering, coming for the kill.

But then the small man's eyes darted past him, and he twisted his off hand in the air, making a cutting sort of motion, and—

High-pitched, humming fire lashed into his back. Fenrir roared in agony, and for just a second, let go. His prey tried to kick him back, to slither off again or bound away, but the Plagueian lashed out, clubbing him in the side of the head with one massive paw, and he stumbled a step.

Even wounded, he lunged for his prey's jugular. The man jerked aside, and instead Fenrir's fangs clamped around his shoulder. Teeth sank into armor plate and flesh, hot blood flooding his mouth. The man screamed, and moved again, hand shooting out to his side, then back, and then that hissing hum, and—

The hunter stiffened as heat then cold pierced his abdomen, a sensation to match the slash in his back but much worse. Focused, hollow-point, small and steady and burning inexorably right through him. His eyes flicked down of their own accord to see plasma lanced through his middle, hilt returned to his enemy's palm.

Fenrir's bite loosed then cinched harder, gurgling with a roar, all savage and desperate, cornered violence. His clawed hands flailed blindly at the other's arms, seeking to flay or pin, but he couldn't knock the other to the floor, and rapidly, his motions...slowed. His limbs grew leaden, heavy and chill. And then not even that, not even cold. Just...not there. Numb.

Fenrir realized slowly, thoughts torpid, crawling as slowly as a newborn runt to milk, that he was on the ground. No longer standing. The roar in his ears was not his own but the bellow of blood his heart was struggling to beat.

It was slowing too.

The beast's last thought was a bitter one, angry and hateful: that he, it seemed, would be the prey after all.

---

Ruka staggered as he sank down next to the black-furred Shistavanen, breathing hard, back hitting stone. His mauled arm was a mess of pain, fingers twitching, cool and hot and sticky with his own blood, but he could still lift it, move it. That had to be something.

Still alive, he thought, inhaling through bared teeth, clenching shut aching eyes that beaded with tears. It hurt, and his chest felt three sizes too small to contain everything in it, like his ribs were straining to hold his galloping heart. His hands trembled, relief slowly creeping in to replace the fear that shook them. I'm okay, I'm okay, I didn't lose it, I'm still me, I'm not dying, I'm okay, we're okay, it's okay, Cor, mhi aminhaa, kids, I— Don't worry, I'll come home, I'm okay, I'll come home, I'm coming home.

His knuckles whitened around his bloodied saber, and he wanted nothing more than to curl up somewhere just not here and sleep, but…

But first.

Slumping off the pillar, the Sith held his blade up a little higher, using its glow to illuminate. The big alien was very still, breathing shallowly, bleeding sluggishly from around half-burned wounds that stank of smoldering fur. Ruka grimaced, feeling echoes of anger and sick with himself.

Switching the saber to his bad hand, he used his steadier one to open the bacta kit that he carried, then paused and frowned again, considering. Better to be safe. Carefully, he plucked the stuncuffs off his belt and maneuvered them onto the beast-like man's wrists, each limb heavy deadweight. Once they were secure and limp on his chest, Ruka started administering, as best he could, all three doses of gel onto the other's wounds.

It wouldn't be enough to close them; the kit wasn't made for all that. But it would help, and if Bogan heard his prayers, it could be enough to get the Shistavanen to the nearest planet with medical aid.

His own wounds pulled and stung as he moved, and he felt the fresh blood trickling down his torso from the scratches, and hissed.

And get me help too.

Standing and stumbling a little, the Adept braced himself with another even breath, letting the Force anchor him. Even that was hard. He was so tired, and it was so much, too much, for him to hold without his skin growing thin. He did it anyway.

With a gesture more out of habit than necessity, Ruka levitated his massive opponent into the air and his weapons back to his belt, and began trudging for the nearest, easiest climb out of the temple ruins. His ship was just past some rocks at the crater's edge. He would get the Shistavanen safe, and get them both taken care of, and call someone about an arrest, and then...then…

I'm coming home to you.

It was as if time stood still in that veritable graveyard of a planet.

The humanoid was stunned for a few moments, yet he could hear the minutest details of the world around him.

From the hot breeze that swept through the valley, the light wind on his own exposed skin, the feeling of dagger-like sharp rocks under his torso, to the throbbing, pulsating power of the pyramid: Ruka could sense it it all.

But more importantly, even though he was momentarily disoriented and in severe pain from the Force Lightning, he could sense and even hear the approaching beast. He could hear as the beast landed softly on the rocks somewhere behind him, almost as lightly as a cat. The soil under the beast crunched as he stepped over them heavily now. Perhaps the beast was now excited; his prey was helpless before him.

Fenrir towered over the prone Mirilian, readying for a kill. His eyes were afire, his jaws open in anticipation for the kill, fangs out for blood and violence. His claws pulsed with impatience to rip his preys guts out, even as he neared the Mirilian.

Yet even as he did so, he could almost sense something wasn't right. Maybe it was his 6th sense going on overdrive, or maybe the Force was trying to tell him something. But Fenrir brushed those warning aside and continued to advance. He wanted nothing than to disembowel the man.

Suddenly Ruka spun around. He was now on his back, eyes ringed with the fire of hot rage! He was lying passive for a few moments.

This time, it was Fenrir who was too taken aback to react in time for his own medicine. He go hit by a bolt of Force Lightning, then another, and another.

Ruka was on his feet now, his hands outstretched. Three bolts of lightning had emanated from his hands, paralyzing the beast with pain. It was now on the hard ground, writhing in pain like an animal that it was. But Ruka was not done yet, Once again he stretched out his hand. The Shistavanen was raised slowly off the ground like a rag doll, suspended in the air like a puppet, and then with a sickening crush dashed against the ground.

Lightsaber ignited, he advanced on the prone beast. Standing over Fenrir, he raised his lightsaber as if to decapitate...

At the very last second, he deactivated the weapon and simply said, "Go back to where you came, and tell whoever sent you that this quarry is not easy to take. IF you give me any cause to kill you again, beast, I will."

Fenrir's never one to keep silent when talked to, but this once, he saw that his quarry is more powerful than him. He merely nodded, still dazed from the pain, and limped off to his ship. Some day...Mirilian...some day...