Hidden in Felucia’s jungle lies a two hundred meter expanse marking the ancient burial site of this world’s deadliest creatures and the location of innumerable remnants of hundreds, if not thousands of rancors. A circular enclosure of sun-bleached bones are arranged in the center of the cemetery—no doubt the former dwelling of a powerful practitioner of the Force. Cobwebs cling to the fallen beasts, a testament to the primordial age of some of the creatures.

Somewhat obscured by surrounding cliffs and the luminescent jungle, the dusted bones and carcasses are cast in a faint shadow, leaving just enough light to see by. The atmosphere is thick and stifling, with a strong overtone of dust and bone suspended in the still air. The taint of the Dark Side's influence has polluted the landmark over time, giving form to a dreadful aura that has scared off scavengers hoping to sell off a rancor tusk or two. Unlike most of Felucia, the area is nearly devoid of life aside from ravenous predators dwelling within the hollowed-out husks of dead rancors.

Sulith died first.

Perhaps that wasn't so surprising. He-sometimes-she was always so determined to shield those considered friends or innocents. To be the one taking the hits so others didn't have to.

Sulith's fur had stunk when his lightsaber carved right through it. He nearly had the urge to wipe the blade clean, as one would maintain a more traditional weapon, but of course plasma had no such needs. And, of course, the mess had only just begun.

Jax was next — would have been first, really, as he had tried to talk to his Captain in the language of the dune seas that raised the Zabrak, to plead with him, but Sulith had thrown himself between the hybrid and the killing blow. Instead, the many-tongued old Mandalorian had fallen second, his bulk following his severed lower jaw to the floor.

Alaisy had been tricky. She had nearly escaped him, bound him in living shadows and enslaved him to blood magicks by the jewelry she'd gifted him. But no such luck. And latex really was even worse than fur, exposed to heat. It boiled, and for the first and last time he heard the alchemist's modulated scream while her suit turned to molten liquid and melted to her skin, and then through her skin, to bone, and...

Unfortunately, between the time those three bought and Zig's skillful slicing, he was cut off from the rest of his crew. Her tear-wrecked, furious cursing had stormed through the intercoms as she remotely sealed various airlocks and blast doors on the ship, opening the cargo bay hatch to vent him into the void. But even that could not stop him. As the bodies of his former crewmates drifted past, frozen, he moved on, using the Force to sustain himself and safely reenter the vessel, where he watched their escape shuttle flee uselessly.

He would hunt them to the ends of the Galaxy, and he would give them each a choice: remain the family they so claimed to be, or die like the traitors. No in between.

Only absolutes.

---

What if they weren't fast enough?

The gunship rattled around them as it broke through Felucia's atmosphere. Ruka clutched for purchase at a strap above, having been too anxious to do anything but pace and fiddle with his gear the entire trip. Corazon watched him worriedly from the co-pilot's seat while their droid managed the controls, but didn't spare any more assurances than he already had beyond a brush of their minds.

They'd moved as fast as they could, but what if it wasn't fast enough? Ruka needed to be there. He needed to help, he needed to see—

Sera's shaken voice, normally so bright and strong, its enthusiasm impossible to extinguish just like her light, replayed in his mind for the hundredth time.

"We don't know what's safe, if he's using the Clan channels, or— please, hurry. Where we first fought," she'd said in her message, and he'd never heard her sound so desperate. "Please hurry."

He'd known Karran was stressed, but this? He didn't want to believe it. He didn't want to believe that his friend, his apprentice, had truly snapped. Had hurt his friends and subordinates.

But that's always how it works, his own words reminded him, haunting, with the Dark. Everything you want, it comes with a price.

He didn't want to believe Karran's was his humanity.

Ashla and Bogan, if it were true, what if they weren't fast enough? What if they didn't get there in time? What if Sera and the others were already dea—

His knuckles whitened on the back of the co-pilot's chair, and he heard the metal creak.

They quickly descended through low, pallid green clouds churning up an incoming storm. Ruka leaned forward, staying all but pressed up to the viewport, violet eyes searching while the droid began navigating a landing it had performed once before, and—

There they were.

A wide, gray clearing, ringed by cliffs and haggard jungle trees that dared go no further. A shuttle there in the mist and bones, the ramp open. The obviously more able bodied of the crew had weapons drawn, ready to go down defending their wounded or less able comrades. Movement caught his gaze, tracking it sideways.

Sera was fighting.

Sera was fighting Karran. And even as he watched, the larger Zabrak struck out his hand and loosed a short, cruel torrent of lightning that Sera barely grounded with her golden saber, barely fast enough—

Ruka was at the hatch before he'd loosed a breath.

"Get the others onboard!" he barked to his partner, trusting the Jedi who called after him, but as soon as the door lowered enough to force his body through, the Mirialan inhaled the Force and leapt.

"SERA!" he screamed, streaking down like a star falling from on high, his lightsaber in hand a comet tail of blue. He crashed down between the Zabraks, felt dirt crater under his boots, bone dust erupting in plumes around them, the sound of sparking, spitting plasma ringing in his ears. His arms shook against the resistance his two-handed slash met.

The dust settled. Red and blue struggled. Violet met not warm desert brown but seething red; Karran's eyes were burning coals in the pitch pools of his tattooed face.

The other Sith actually smiled.

"I'd wondered why she'd run here, Master," Karran mocked, and shoved forward, always forward, persevering like the form he held dear. Ruka let himself be pushed away, jumping back, gaze darting to Sera while a thud announced their ship's landing.

"Are you okay?!" he barked, taking in her appearance. The smaller Zabrak woman, always so fierce, barely seemed to be on her feet. She was covered in burns and cuts, bleeding from more stab wounds than he could count, her legs bruised from her own kicking blows.

The Mirialan paid for his distraction, for thinking for even a second he could take his eyes off Karran, as if Karran wasn't the enemy here. A wide strike bringing all his force to bear swept for Ruka, and only his screeching senses saved him, moving his arms up and saber to bear in an overhead block instinctively. His apprentice's blade pummeled into the guard heartbeats later, an aggressive chain of attacks pressing forward, forward, pressing him back. Ruka bared his gritted teeth and held his ground as best he could, each step back an earthquake impact, each block and blow a tidal wave breaking against cliffs.

"Ankar, stop!" Sera plead behind them, stumbling, arms failing to raise both her dagger and saber.

"I'll come back to you, kashinka," Karran mocked.

"No!"

Snarling, Ruka let the Dark all around, seeped into the soil, surge into his bones. He leapt high, away from the next slash that came, twisted in midair, and aimed at Karran's right shoulder with his elbow. The sharp blow connected with enough amplified force to spin the Zabrak around, a shock of pain shooting up Ruka's arm and a muted, fleshy crack from issuing from Karran's.

The reprieve was enough; the Mirialan whipped around, caught Sera as she sagged, and kicked off the ground again in a bounding arc across the graveyard. He landed near to their gunship and cradled Sera but briefly before telekinetically easing her into the hold of his Jedi husband, who took over the duty.

"Everyone's on."

"Then go."

"Ruka," Corazon started to protest, but the Mirialan barked back.

"Go! She needs you. I'll hold him off."

The Pantoran's sunlight golden eyes met his before he nodded. "Come back to us, angel."

And then he was gone and the ship was taking off as the Adept turned back to his opponent to see Karran waiting for him.

"No more!" snarled Ruka, eyes bright, stance wide, hair and cape blown wild around him by the gunship's backblast. "I won't let you hurt one more person, do you hear me?!"

"Ruka...you won't let me do anything. You can't stop me," growled the Zabrak, sharp teeth bare in an expression that wasn't a smile.

Karran thrust out his hand, and the air itself shuddered, hot winds whipping as the ship above gave a metallic shriek, the thrusters straining against their arrested momentum. Ruka watched in horror only a heartbeat before snarling and closing his own telekinetic grip around the vessel, trying to push it free towards the atmosphere while Karran held it back.

The haul groaned, the thrusters sputtering, the vehicle swaying in midair as the two Sith battled for it, teeth bared, glares darting between their target and one another.

"Let...go!" Ruka shouted.

"Never!" Karran spat.

The Mirialan cursed and hissed, splitting his focus just long enough to lift his other hand and thrust out his saber, not in a whirlwind, but in a controlled strike as if he were wielding it himself. Above them, the ship twitched back towards the ground. Karran gave a victorious howl.

Ruka jerked his fingers, and his blade spun and stabbed at the Zabrak, right for his chest, forcing him to lift his own saber in startled counter. The ship rose again, and again Ruka mimed a slash, and the blade followed, dancing around Karran. The larger of the men growled while he parried and blocked blows, his movements with his right arm — his dominant hand — slightly slowed.

The distant rush of something breaking through the stratosphere was the most beautiful and awful thing he'd heard in ages, because his friends were safe, but—

But now it was just them, and he couldn't avoid this any longer.

"Why, Karran?" Ruka shouted, summoning his blade back to his palm. "Why would you do this?! Are you out of your mind?! Is someone controlling you? Is it the Dark corruption? Dammit, these are your family! You're their captain and you turned on them! What about your oath, your honor?"

"Captain?" the Zabrak scoffed. "And what did that accomplish me? Nothing. Not enough. Never enough. Not with Vasano's simperings and machinations, not with Garmis' insolence. And not just her. This evil goes all the way up, every branch, every thorn, every infected root. Captain is nothing. Consul? Don't make me laugh. No... No I will be...I am...an Emperor. THE Emperor. I am Darth Krayt now, no son of Kar."

"You're a kriffing idiot is what you are, you franger! Don't you give me that Darth sithspit! Your name is Karran, and you— you killed your friends. You killed OUR friends! You're betraying everything, everyone— why?"

"BECAUSE THAT IS WHAT IT WILL TAKE!" bellowed his fellow Sith, advancing across the space, bones crunching underfoot. Ruka retreated, matching his pace step for step, a dance amidst ancient death. "I am powerful now, I will be powerful, I have earned it, I deserve it! I will have my vengeance and I will have the respect of those around me and no more will I be blocked or belittled at every turn by any of these fools— not by Vasano, not by my dragon, not by you."

"All this suffering, just for your pride?!" the Mirialan cried, and his own rage welled up in his chest, the hurt and fury and terror, and his hand lifted and lightning burst from his fingertips. The storm tendrils coruscated into an instantaneous, protective corona of energy around Karran. Even as he let the furious charge continue, it dispersed finely over his opponent's barrier, and Ruka clenched his fist, ceasing the attempt.

"For my everything," Karran shot back, wild, sneering. "For that, I will do anything I must, nevermind the cost. They will pay it. They will join me or they will perish like the traitors they are."

"No! Karran, stop this! Just let them go!"

"I won't."

"And I won't ask you again!" The Mirialan leveled his blue saber at the Zabrak from across the distance between them. For but a few meters, it may as well have been a chasm. "Stop this! Let my people go!"

"They are MY PEOPLE, MINE!" snarled Karran back, face contorting in rage, tattoos like the pits of a skull, lit in red plasma flame. "I will never let them go!"

He charged. Ruka did too. They connected with an explosive gust of air that sent skeletons rattling and mist swirling, the strength of a thousand men before them flowing through their bodies, dark and roaring. Their blades snapped round and round, over and over, high then low, chained slashes and unrelenting, determined strikes.

Each blow echoed, but not with the shriek of plasma meeting plasma; it was with memory. Their first meeting in the Citadel courtyard, beneath an age old tree. Their first spar there turned judgement, then turned challenge. Their later rematches, Karran asking Ruka to train him. Ruka pressing Karran's kyber crystal into Karran's hand, telling him he was worthy, that he was what it meant to be a knight. Shared meditation, grueling practice sessions, quiet talking. The buzz of a needle and the smell of ink, and black petals; Karran matching Ruka. Fighting side by side, trusting one another implicitly. Parties and drinks and dares, fevers and gentle, firm hands tending sickness, gifts and promises between brothers in arms, helping each other, because that was what family was for. Karran and Ruka. Ruka and Karran.

"This isn't you," Ruka whispered as their lightsabers locked, keening. "Just stop, please, just tell me what's wrong, let me help, please, Karran, this isn't you. You're my friend."

"Friend? Then you wouldn't be begging me to stop like some pathetic child crying in the sand. You wouldn't be fighting me. You would be standing beside me."

"I am beside you! You! Not this, not whatever this is! It's not you, YOU wouldn't have hurt them, not Sera, no one who you cared for. You'd have died first. So tell me what's wrong—"

"SHUT UP!" screeched Karran, and hammered a blow so hard that Ruka's weapon flew from his grasp and clattered across the clearing. Hissing, the Mirialan jerked back, quick enough to avoid being bisected but not enough to avoid the glancing rake over his chest. He yowled in pain as his armor seared to his skin and reached out around him with his mind, not even needing to move his hands. Chunks of crumbling, packed earth and stone and pieces of bone all rose into the air and hovered a moment before blasting forward like a scatter shot.

The debris pelted the Zabrak, slicing into his flesh and robes and throwing him down to the earth. He didn't stay there even for a second though, somersaulting back to his feet with his own momentum and screaming out as blood poured from a multitude of shallow wounds, red bleeding over the black lines of his ancestors' heritage.

"What do you care?! You never loved me! It was never me!"

"Of course I care! You're my brother! Karran, plea—"

The Zabrak spun towards him, and between one circling step and another, he kicked off the ground, spinning forward. His arms tucked tight into his body, one leg planted, the other swinging up high and carrying the momentum of its weight like a pendulum. It cracked into the Mirialan's jaw so hard his ears rang, pain blooming in a whitewash over his vision.

But Karran kept moving, only mid-step in a brutal dance.

The Zabrak dropped, planting both hands, and swept his leg at Ruka's. Dazed, the Mirialan wasn't fast enough to brace when a knee as solid as any tree trunk swept into the back of his, dropping him hard and fast. His breath huffed out of him in a gasp when his back connected with the ground. Before he got the chance to gasp in, Karran was on him.

"You couldn't even love me," hissed the Zabrak.

Stronger arms, a wider, larger frame, pinned his. He struggled uselessly, unable to gain any leverage to even attempt a grapple. His friend, his brother, stared down at him with curled lips.

"Maybe I'll make you. Keep you like the others. Maybe you can be the Emperor's consort."

One of the hands that pinned his was replaced by Karran's entire body weight bearing down, and fingers dug into the wound across his chest, ripping burnt-shut flesh open. Ruka wailed, but the sound was choked off as another hand knotted in his dreadlocks and yanked his head aside, teeth clamping onto his throat. Another flash of pain came, hot and sharp when they broke skin, sank into muscle, started to rip back. He nearly bit his tongue in two and struggled harder.

"No, Karran— stop."

"Will you really be with me, or do I have to kill you too? Hmm? Join me."

"Stop this," Ruka croaked at him, cracking in the middle.

He writhed again, and Karran just pressed down harder, nails breaking skin, fingers bruising. Painting in reds and purples to smear over the green of him. The Zabrak pulled back and then smashed their mouths together, all teeth and force, and Ruka's eyes screwed shut against it, against the legs trying to part his.

NO! shouted the Mirialan, a mental scream of defiance, disgust, of broken trust. When his eyes opened again they burned bright gold, glaring at the other Sith, and with a heave of Force-enhanced muscles he twisted his hips and rammed his knee up between the Zabrak's own. Karran's breath left him in a wet gust, spewing over Ruka's face, the pain evident in his features for only a moment before a telekinetic hammer was slamming him away.

Karran was knocked back by the punch. He twisted himself through the air as he flew before his feet touched the ground and he slid back. The powdered bone offered little friction against his skidding feet. He inhaled deeply, trying to restore the air to his lungs as he bent over. He felt the pain in his chest and groin, yes, but it was nothing compared to the rage that burned inside him. His mind was clear. His objective was perfectly outlined before him. Ruka had chosen his fate. The choice had been a fair one. Now he would suffer. His head snapped up to look at Ruka. The veins along his muscles bulged as the dragon inside reared its head.

The Mirialan stood, placing a hand to his chest where the blood slowly pooled out of the wound. Blood from the bite on his neck was beginning to creep down and into his armor. He had to at least buy the others time to get far, far away from his apprentice. No, not his apprentice. Not anymore. This monster had taken his place and drove him to commit these atrocities. Nonetheless, he felt responsible. Ruka breathed deeply, steadying himself to prepare for the beast’s next attack, when he felt himself lifted off his feet and held aloft by his throat. He choked and gasped for air as he looked up to see Karran with his left hand outstretched, gesturing as if he were holding the Mirialan himself.

“Would you like to know how Sulith died?" He sneered. "He died trying to protect Jax. That traitor had the audacity to try to defy my orders. MY orders. That dumb Togorian jumped in the way of my blade. A shame he could not live to see his sacrifice go to waste.”

With a heave of his arm, the Zabrak sent Ruka flying into the nearby ribcage of a long-dead Rancor. The sun-bleached bone was brittle, but solid enough to hurt as the Mirialan crashed through it, leaving a cloud of dust in the air. Small shards of shattered bone dug into his skin, they were shallow, but certainly enough to draw even more blood.

Ruka coughed as the dust filtered into his lungs. He would certainly be coughing it up for weeks, if he lived that long, which was seeming less and less likely. Once again, he dragged himself to his feet to face his fallen apprentice.

“This- this isn’t you, arrarmio.”

“That is where you are wrong, master. This is who I am. This is who I have always been.”

The Mirialan looked across the field where his lightsaber had fallen and reached out, summoning it back to his hand. The brilliant blue blade erupted from its emitter as he stood there, defiant in the face of the evil that stood before him. Ruka once again summoned the Dark Side into his being and charged at the Zabrak. Blue on red clashed, sending sparks showering over the ground around them.

Ruka’s overwhelming offense battered against Karran’s practiced defense. The Zabrak did his best to resist the onslaught, but his injured arm was slowing him down. Karran blocked an incoming blow and pushed back against it, locking their sabers together in the process. His left hand darted forward and grabbed the Mirialan by the belt before he let out an enraged roar and heaved the other Sith, throwing him with all of his might.

Ruka tumbled through the dirt once again before sliding to a stop. Karran put his left hand to his right shoulder and channeled the Force to knit together the fractured bone beneath his muscle. After a few moments, he removed his hand and rolled his shoulder, stretching out the newly healed joint. The Zabrak smiled a wicked grin at his wounded opponent before he summoned the Force into his legs and leapt into the air, intent on stabbing Ruka where he laid on the ground.

Warnings screamed through the Force in Ruka’s mind, prompting him to roll to the side to avoid the killing blow. He followed the momentum and pounced up from his position on the ground, igniting his lightsaber once again.

Karran stood and pulled his blade from the ground. He chuckled grimly, “Oh, I have not even told you the best part. The past is done. There is no more pleasure to gain from it. But the future? The things I will do? Now that is where the fun begins. First, I think I will make a little stop off on Kiast to check in on your darling little family. Corazon, Leda, Noga… but do not worry, I will bring you along. Well, a part of you that they will all recognize anyways. Once I have tossed your head at their feet, their laments will be cut short by my blade.”

Ruka grit his teeth at the Zabrak’s threats, sending a jolt of pain through his jaw where the kick had landed, “Karran, you were a part of that family. I called you brother. Once I thought the chance to make you laugh was all I ever wanted. Arrarmio, I-”

“All you ever wanted? You could not see what was right in front of you! I loved you! But you could never see it! But no matter, let my hearts be hardened. I will drive my enemies off of Selen, out of Dajorra. I will force them to the darkest corners of the Galaxy.” Karran stepped menacingly toward his enemy.

Rage and fury welled up inside of the Mirialan and exploded out of his hand in an arc of lightning that connected with Karran’s chest. The electricity coursed through his body and knocked him back. Ruka channeled the Force into his legs and jumped toward the Zabrak.

Ruka descended on Karran, avenging blade and black-ink wings. Karran rose up to meet him, haloed in horns and skin char-burned.

The staggered Zabrak's hand shot up, telekinetically swatting Ruka aside rather than attempt to dodge. The Mirialan didn't cry out, instead letting himself be thrown aside yet again, tumbling upright and pivoting around. The bone dust churned around them with their violence, a plague upon the air, a pestilence burning and bleeding in their lungs.

Across from him, Karran snarled and beat his fist into his chest, brutally hard, over and over — one two, one two — and Ruka remembered something both he and Sera had said on several occasions. Something Karran had just proclaimed while threatening the Mirialan's family. Let his hearts be hardened. Damn his endurance. Would this fight never end?

Stop it, he thought to himself, shoving down the doubts and spitting another mouthful of gritty, bloodied saliva. You've lasted worse, you just have to give them time! Cora, Sera, everyone...

But. But what if even that wasn't enough. If Karran did get out of here, and then...Noga and Leda, Corazon...what if...

No, this had to end here.

"Karran—" and he had to try, one more time, "let go of this, please."

His plea seemed to only incite his apprentice-turned-enemy. Karran sneered at him, beat at his chest again, peeling crisped skin, and then lifted his empty hand.

"You'll die begging," he breathed, and the air crackled with the promise of it, with the power at the younger Sith's fingertips.

Ruka closed his eyes for just a heartbeat. Reached out. Reached in. Ripped open that gate in his mind he usually tried so hard, so kriffing hard, to keep carefully closed, only opened in measured cracks. It was like rending open his ribcage, straight in two, leaving his lungs to balloon and his heart to fall out and in the space they left, power rushed in.

He dropped his saber, thrust out both hands, and screamed. Karran screamed back.

Lightning struck lightning, and the thunderclap that BOOMED between them in a blastwave was the crashing of storm clouds on high, of titans falling to the earth. Superheated air exploded outward, a sonic boom following the riptide. Massive skeletons and carcasses and dust ages old were tossed aside like children's toys, rocks rumbled and shattered, and the trees snapped and bent low, going up in flames.

And then the cool air rushed back in, and the smoke and debris came with it, a tornado-force of bones and stone. It lashed them like the initial shockwave had bowled over them, slicing and battering, and then—

Silence.

The dust began to settle, swirling in low, roiling clouds over the surface. The cliff faces groaned, shuddering. The forest burned.

And Ruka and Karran stood, bleeding, breathless, diametrically opposed.

"You can't beat me!" the Zabrak bellowed. "You're weak, and I am strong."

He's right, the Mirialan despaired, because this wasn't working and he hurt. The gash on his chest made every breath and twitch of muscle a razor, his neck was still bleeding freely, a steady, numbing trickle, there were bone fragments lodged in his ribs, his back, his everything. Karran wasn't even swinging slow anymore, and seemed to hardly care about his electrocution. This wasn't working. They were too matched.

He had to change tactics.

"You are. You are strong, Karran. I've always known that," he called out, hoarse, gaze flicking around rapidly. His saber was gone in the mess, but perhaps he didn't need it. He fixed an idea in his mind, returned his stare to the beast consuming his friend. "But you're still you. Not some Darth Krayt. And that means you're still the kid who wanted to kill a dragon, who lost his dad, who was weak too!"

Around them, the clearing disappeared as darkness swallowed it with a flicker of his will. The blackness was complete, even blacker than the void of space, not one pinprick of starlight to pierce it; but Ruka could still see, and he moved carefully forward, one step at a time. For each step, a rumble echoed in his mind. The shuddering of earth, of some great weight. Stomping, dragging steps. Ragged, raw breaths, rancid with meat. And most of all...a growling roar. He imagined it, and he imagined it for Karran too, weaving the illusion to the Zabrak's mind. Each step a rumble. Each breath a roar. Ahead of him, Ruka saw Karran recoil violently, jerking in place to each sound, saber bobbing and weaving a wild streak, before he steadied and spat.

"You think tricks will work on me?! When I can sense exactly where you are? You fool, Ruka. You were never the type for games. You're no good at them!" he snarled. The Mirialan rapidly ducked as the Zabrak slashed at him blindly, dropping the farce in favor of keeping his head. Ruka twisted just aside the follow-up strike and struck out a knee with enough speed to trip the other, lashing a quick telekinetic pull to rip the saber away from its owner. It vanished into the darkness while Karran jabbed tightly at him with a punishing fist, slamming it into Ruka's gut and slamming the breath from his lungs. He gagged, doubled over, but managed to scramble for his utility belt.

Ruka reached out, fast, had to be fast enough, to brush Karran's wrist, clapping steel over one, then the other, yanking his arm hard even as his newly cracked ribs protested, and—

The bubble of blackness fell, pallid light returned, and Ruka twisted Karran into his hold, back flush to chest, by his manacled hands. The stuncuffs beeped shrilly as they activated, their metal humming in warning.

"NO," it was Karran who cried out this time, writhing, and it was all Ruka could do to even hang on to him. The larger man bucked and threw him stumbling back, twisting this way and that to try and free his arms, to no avail. His expression was furious, a rictus of rage. Angry now, so angry. Not power-mad, not insulted by some imagined arrogance, but the kind of angry that Ruka knew too well, the same kind that smoldered, shaking, in his chest so many times; the anger born of fear. And not just because of the illusions, no, Karran wasn't afraid of his dragon in itself, but of Ruka's knowing. Here was someone who knew him well enough to throw his past, his scars, his wishes, in his face—

It wasn't the wild, aimless hate in his gaze anymore, not even the jealous sneer. There was betrayal there.

It seemed they'd both hurt each other now.

"YOU THINK THESE CAN HOLD ME?!" Karran howled, his rage a palpable thing, swelling his muscles, bursting his veins, bleeding into his eyes. He flexed with an immortal heave, and the metal twisted and screamed as it wrenched apart, snapped at the seams. Ruka swore, rapidly retreating, clutching his chest and panting sharp and shallow. "No chains will hold me! That is what you taught me, isn't it? Freedom. Having power that others do not. That is what it means to be Sith."

He roared again, a raw-throated rasp of a man, not a dragon, and rammed into Ruka like a speeder crash.

His skull cracked into the ground. Weight crushed him down, grinding his bones to so much dust ready to join the mist around them. He felt more than heard the snap. Fire lanced through his chest and he choked around the screams he didn’t have air for as more little white twigs snapped inside him, jagged edges stabbing into lungs he couldn't breathe with. Karran kept hitting. Spots of white and black filled his vision with each blow that came raining down, again and again. Again. And again.

And again.

The pain was a haze. Black and white and blood and pain. His head lulled sideways with another hit and his swollen gaze listed, for just a second, on a length of metal. He tried to focus on it, on—

Klaxons were ringing in the base. Ruka was headed for the hangar, armor on. Karran had been going the same way, dressed for travel, when they ran into each other.

"There's trouble. A civilian transport headed here got attacked by Collective. We're going to go on a rescue op," the Mirialan explained abruptly. "Are you coming? We could use any hands."

"I…" Karran had begun, and stopped, hesitating. Thinking about something.

"You?" Ruka had prompted impatiently.

Karran seemed conflicted. "I…a Collective attack? Not here, again?"

"Ay, listen, will you? Out in space, wherever. Doesn't really matter where, does it? Point is they're hurting people, and we have to do something. Now are you coming or not?"

The Zabrak Sith had only paused another moment before his expression resolved and he lifted his chin, dropping that travel pack. "Of course I'm coming," he'd answered. And then Ruka had given him his lightsaber crystal back.

"I don't know what you were gonna do, really, but I can tell looking at you it was big — and you just gave it up. To help people. That's what a knight is if you ask me. So, there. That's yours now. You deserve it."

Karran had named that lightsaber—

Ruka called Redemption to his hand. Thrust it up. Thumbed the ignition.

Karran croaked. Pulled back. Looked at him with those savage, poison yellow eyes sunk in red. Looked down, at the same time Ruka did, at the red blade bursting through his chest.

He coughed, wet and explosive. Red spattered over the Mirialan's face. Red dribbled from Karran's lips.

Biting off a sob, Ruka deactivated and dropped the saber in favor of catching his friend as the Zabrak swayed and slumped, falling to his knees. The Mirialan used the Force to silence his own pain, all of it, just for this moment, and carried them both down, cradling the other carefully against him, propped up in his lap, to keep him off the cold ground. Karran's breath wheezed and rattled out of him in horrible, sucking gurgles that made the hole in his chest bubble up with more blood every time. His eyes fluttered.

"Hey," Ruka begged, urgently. His words were slurred from swelling, from blood and breaks. He shook the Zabrak. "Hey! Ay! Arrarrmio, c'mon, stay awake. I can't heal you, you have to do it yourself."

Because Zabraks had two hearts, and Ruka had only pierced one, or he'd only meant to. Just to get him to stop. He didn't want him to die. Just make him stop. Just—

"Karran! Listen to me, you franger, heal yourself! I've seen you get up from worse than this!" He snatched up Karran's cool, clammy hands, the knuckles utterly ruined, and pressed them to the Zabrak's own chest to speed things along. "Do it!"

"...n...no."

The Mirialan's eyes snapped up to meet watery brown ones, full of tears. Red still, but not with the twisted power, no; just with the ruddiness of broken vessels. The eyes of his friend. The rage had burned out.

Ruka sputtered. "'No?' What do you mean, 'no?!' Heal yourself!"

"No, Ruka, I-I don...d-don't de-serve it..."

"Kriff that! I didn't come here to kill you, you franging martyr, I came here to save my friends! All of them! Including you! That wasn't you, that was just— just the worst of you, okay, now shut up and heal yourself!" His voice cracked. "Or— or I'll never forgive you, you hear me?!"

"No one can...c-can for...'ive me...n-no one shoul'..."

His breathing was getting raspier, his voice wetter, weaker. His whole body was cold.

"No, no, no, no— Karran! You don't just get to DIE, you hear me? That's sithspit. You're supposed to live and make up for the terrible kriff you did! Own it! You don't just get to leave all those people, you don't get to leave Sera and Satsi and your crew and Sammy, you don't get to leave Sully and Alaisy and Jax's memories, you don't get to leave me. And the kids! Who's Noga gonna play huttball with, huh? Who's gonna show Leda K'thri? You don't get to go, you don't get off that easy!"

"... Weren't...y'saying...le-let...them go..."

"I never said to let yourself go too. And I'm not letting go of you! Karran!" He was sobbing now. Snotting and crying. He clutched the deadweight of the limp Zabrak to him, knees biting into the dirt.

"...p-promise...?"

"I promise," Ruka whispered fiercely, right into his ear, tucking his horned head carefully under his chin and holding his friend tight so he'd feel it. "I promise, I won't let go of you, I'm going to be right here the whole time, I won't leave you, I'll never leave you, I swear, brother..."

He felt a cold kiss to his throat in thanks and just kept talking. Rambling. Over and over. Until he felt the shift in the Force, felt the being that inhabited the body in his hold fade into the ether, into the earth and wind and trees. And even then, he didn't let go. He'd promised.

He just held onto Karran's body and cried. Cried until he couldn't keep his own hurts at bay any longer, and then the darkness was welcoming and fast.

Two bodies slumped, and the graveyard fell silent.

Karran rolled and tumbled as the lightning arced across his body. Smoke rose from his form as he lay in a heap. He lifted his head to see Ruka leaping toward his prone form, intent on driving his lightsaber through the Zabrak. With a flick of his wrist, his own crimson blade erupted, parrying the Mirialan’s saber away before he twisted his body on the ground and drove a foot up into his former master’s abdomen.

The kick drove the air out of Ruka’s lungs and redirected his momentum as he was thrown over Karran and rolled along the dry, dusty ground. The Zabrak followed the momentum of the kick and brought himself back to his feet. The fierce blast of lightning had left every nerve in his body raw. His skin felt scarred and burned. With his blade still active, he turned to look where Ruka had come to rest.

“Come now, master. The lives of your family are on the line. Draw upon the darkness inside you. Summon your demons. Unleash the beast.”

Ruka coughed and spit into the dirt, “My family is all that matters. I just need to give them time to escape you.”

“There is no hole in the galaxy deep enough for them to hide. I will rain fire upon any backwater hole foolish enough to protect them. I will burn the galaxy if that is what it takes to wipe away any memory of your weakness, your treachery.” Karran walked over to his opponent on the ground and looked down before delivering a kick to the fallen Mirialan’s ribs. “GET UP! I am not done with you yet!”

Ruka pushed himself up. As he stood, he ignited his lightsaber and with a wild swing attempted to cleave up through his former student. Karran’s wrist twisted up to block the strike with his own blade. In the same moment, the Zabrak’s left hand reached and took hold of Ruka’s left wrist, squeezing so tightly that the Mirialan nearly thought his bones would crack. Karran drew his head back and drove it forward into the green-skinned Sith’s tattooed face. Blood pooled from Ruka’s broken nose and forehead as long, boney horns pierced his peridot skin and created jagged lacerations along his own forehead. The smaller Sith recoiled from the strike and stumbled back as stars filled his vision. Karran took the initiative and swung a wide, powerful kick at Ruka’s knee, forcing him to the ground, the joint popped as it bent out at a disturbing angle.

Karran lifted his opponent’s arm before driving a second kick into the wound on Ruka’s chest, which elicited another pained scream. The powerful impact sent the Mirialan tumbling into another pile of bones, cracking and splintering under his weight.

“You are weak, Ruka. I cannot believe I ever thought I could learn anything under you. Your weakness is a disgrace to the Sith. Now you will die." The Zabrak slowly walked toward his former master. The man he had loved, once upon a time. A brother in arms. A master. A friend.

Ruka looked up from where he had fallen, his vision returning but clouded by blood pouring from the wounds on his head. He tried to stand, but his knee gave out from under him. From his knees, he gripped his lightsaber. With a final act of desperation, he swung at the monster Karran had become. Karran blocked the attack once again and this time countered with a quick vertical cut, severing Ruka's left hand just above the wrist. The Mirialan cried out as the blade burned though his skin, flesh, and bone. The hand fell into the dirt. The Lotus's lightsaber tumbled out of the lifeless grip and rolled until it was stopped by Karran's foot. With a thought and a gesture, the Zabrak summoned it to his own hand and clipped it to his belt.

"You have no more need of this. Perhaps I will pass it on to my own apprentice." The Zabrak reached and took hold of Ruka's dreadlocked hair, pulled up, and looked into the Mirialan’s eyes. Karran had expected to see fear or anguish. Instead, all he saw was defiance. Ruka knew that he was going to die, but he would die having accomplished his goal. Karran hesitated for a moment as the last words he would ever speak to Ruka formed on his lips through a sneer.

"I loved you. I loved you and you never saw."

Before Ruka could respond, the crimson blade severed his head from his body. The beaten, bloodied corpse of the Mirialan fell to the ground. Slowly, it would decompose and become indiscernible from the rest of the bones of Dathomir.

The self-appointed Sith Lord turned away. A single tear formed and rolled down his face, cutting through the blood, dirt, and grime. He had to find a way off of this planet. There was still work to be done.