The Stand At Aay'han Keep

[Fromikeable]

It wasn’t the pain that made Genthus ache with every step. Injury was an old friend to a man that tackled beasts the size of starships. Soreness was almost a comfort, scars marking the many, many places where his tore had been torn and ripped and sundered. Exhaustion was no stranger either, well-acquainted from days-long hunts and hours-long on-and-off-again fights.

It was the disappointment that Genthus felt sting with every footfall. Every look from the few Deshra that still stood by him did more than any wound could.

It hadn’t been until the most recent capitulation that Hal and his ilk had switched their attention solely to Genthus. They were the only two left, after all. The other clans had withdrawn or surrendered. Some had agreed in full terms to support Clan Kelborn. Many others had said nothing, collecting their dead, their candidates such as they remained, and heading home in silent defeat. Still others continued to watch from the neutral sidelines, quietly appraising.

To those, it was no longer a question of who would win. It was a question of how exactly it would end.

Genthus’s flotilla had been dashed in a matter of minutes. That had been 12 days ago in the orbit of Mandalore itself, the haphazard assembly of starfighters and freighters and even a handful of patrol ships doing what little they could against an actual force of corvettes and destroyers. With the skies the realm of the enemy, and knowing what was coming, Genthus and his ilk had retreated to the only place on the planet they could really hope to defend; a small keep in the mountains, wrested from the other half of Clan Deshra.

The half that had spat at Genthus and called him a walking disaster.

Genthus had assumed that he would die atop the small walls of the enclave in the coming hours. What he had endured instead had been 12 days of bombardment and attrition. A couple hundred Mandalorians had dwindled to a couple dozen. Desertions had steadily picked up in frequency. Supplies were nearly gone. Ammunition nearly expended. Holes had formed in the walls, the shield generator encompassing the small fort barely still functioning.

And that morning, as Genthus had peered out past the gates, Clan Kelborne and their supporters had continued to sit and wait. A sure victory, without doubt, but not a warrior’s victory. Hal intended for them to come walking out waving white flags, so it seemed.

Genthus would give their tactic no such satisfaction.

---

At midday, what little remained of the defenders had announced their sortie with what few long-range munitions they had left. Rockets and plasma bolts had soared through the late morning sky as jetpacks roared and boots thundered. Underfed, injured, and exhausted, the charge had sounded more ferocious than it had a right to, and moved more slowly than it should have. Even if it had performed with more zeal, it would scarcely have mattered; bursting from the trees had come a little over 80 Mandalorians, their cries less about the seat of Mandalore and more about a glorious end.

This was their end, and they intended for it to go properly, at least.

At the forefront had come Genthus. Dropping from the sky as he used what little jetpack fuel he’d gathered, he’d hurled the expended pack as he’d drawn his sword. He and his warriors had charged the Kelborn line like banshees, and were blessed with only the first moment being successful, likely just from surprise. As the line had shifted, the Deshra had began to fall, one by one, as the line surrounded them.

Genthus still remained at the front, sword in one hand, rifle in the other, bashing both against any Kelborne he could reach. Arms heavy and beskar’gam dented and muddied, every other breath was a murderous, hoarse, belabored yell, broadcast in peaked audio through Genthus’s helmet-comm to every receiver in range.

”HAL KELBORN! HAAAAAAAAL KELBORN!”

[Ysmir]

"No mercy. No quarter. We keep swapping watches until they break," Mandalore said to his second. The hardened warrior was weary -- his vigil hadn't ended for nearly two straight days, with only a few allotted withdrawals for food and water. But they couldn't afford to take their eyes away for even a moment. "This ends when Deshra chooses for it to end."

The Clan Kelborn supercommando pressed a fist to the chestplate of his Beskar'gam. "As you command, Lord Mandalore. I'll check the front."

Twelve days; twelve days they had waited in the mountains, surrounding the final bastion of Genthus's single-minded war against any who'd dare call him "wrong". The tactic wasn't one Hal employed easily. There was no honor in starving your enemy out of their hole. Were it anyone else, an outsider to the clans, Mandalore would have led the charge personally and see them routed out through force. But despite their refusal to bend the knee, the people huddled within those walls were still of the Mando'ade. Some had come to their senses and snuck out in the many nights, walking to the front and throwing down their weapons. Those few were given food, water, shelter, and most importantly, amnesty. If they were to prosper in the coming days, it would need to be done together. There was no room for disparity or discord.

But none of that mattered to Genthus the Rancorbane. His mercurial temper and unbelievably thick skull meant that no matter how hopeless the situation, no matter how desperate and pleading his people, surrender was not an option. He had Mandalore's respect; it had been almost a decade since they'd first fought alongside one another as brothers-in-arms, as allies. But now, all of that was in the past. The Golden Age had crumbled to dust as the reality of their situation set in. Hal didn't want this power, but he felt an obligation tugging at his actions unlike any he'd had before, and that meant no quarter given to even his most stalwart allies.

Mandalore laid a hand on his Basilisk; the alert amalgam of creature and droid hummed idly as its sensors scanned the treeline for any sign of movement, movement Mandalore was certain would come eventually.

And come it did.

---

Mandalore had been in the middle of long-overdue rest after his two and a half day vigil when the war horns sounded from the frontlines of their outpost, erected just outside Aay'han Keep's boundaries in the thicket. He jumped at the first sign of trouble; donning his helmet and lifting his staff, the leader of Clan Kelborn charged from his tent, where his Basilisk waited patiently. With a pull and a grunt, he hefted himself up and onto the back of the loyal beast, which whirred to life and stretched its forelegs free from the weight of sleep as it prepared itself to enter the fray. Pushing from the ground, the Basilisk's thrusters engaged and carried it toward the front of the Kelborn outpost.

At the head of the line, the sheer surprise factor had afforded Genthus and his ragtag group of survivors a strong opening. Several of the Kelborn warriors were caught off guard and fell victim to the guerilla tactics, with yells of alarm and cries of battle as they met the Deshra attackers in combat.

Once the surprise wore off, however, the situation quickly flipped on its head. It took less than a minute for the Kelborn defenders to rally together and compose themselves, which didn't bode well for their enemies. Soon, they formed something akin to a phalanx, surrounding the small sortie of fighters and pushing them in while other warriors at range watched the trees for any sign of reinforcement -- reinforcement which likely wouldn't come. Some of Clan Deshra met unfortunate but noble ends as their bodies slumped lifelessly to the ground, while others were stunned and captured. Soon, all that remained were Genthus and a select few of his most vicious combatants who somehow managed to fight multiple Kelborn warriors off at once, driven solely by sheer will and determination to take as many down with them as they could.

From behind the center of the fray, a massive THUD sounded out as the Basilisk landed on the ground. Dust and dirt kicked up from its feet while Mandalore leapt from its top, landing in a crouch just in time to hear his name called out over the comms. From outside the circle, he could see the wild mountain of a man fending off his warriors one by one, refusing to go down. Hoisting his stunstaff, he lifted it overhead.

"KELBORN, FALL IN!", he cried, and the line began receding back from Genthus and his few remaining allies. The line parted as Mandalore walked forth, allowing him to come into few before Genthus's eyes. They stood four or five meters apart, staring across from one another over bloodsoaked dirt and grass. The Kelborn warriors hesitantly stood at ease, though with all their weapons trained on Genthus. A few silent moments passed, though it felt like an eternity, as the mutilated retaliation beheld the combined might of Clan Kelborn. Hal broke the silence.

"Truly, Genthus, nobody of the Mando'ade embodies the ramikadyc quite like you," Mandalore spoke, in a wry but genuine compliment. Silence again, before he took a few steps closer. "You don't need to die here. No one else needs to die. Leave your pride behind, and I promise, this will end."

[Fromikeable]

Beskar clanged. Laser bolts ricocheted and screamed, slugs following just moments slower. Genthus’s beskad bashed and slashed. His helmet rang and his armor dented. When his rifle ran its last power pack, it was hurled at the nearest opponent. When he felt the warriors at his back fall or separate, Genthus spun and tried to cover that much larger of an angle. When dirt exploded before his helmet, when his legs buckled under concussions, when his arms shook as they grabbed and punched and swung and flailed…

Genthus just kept roaring, his ears ringing, his mind gone. There was nothing but the next Kelborn in front of him, nothing but the next defeated body of his allies to maneuver over.

Just the fight, and extending it as many seconds as he could.

So the stop was jarring. Hal’s receding lines were menaced with a few final wild attacks before Genthus realized that they were moving, before he looked around. When he saw that they were officially surrounded, he scanned what few Deshras remained. Maybe a dozen, if that. All wounded. Most fighting with little left, a few with their knives, one with a small rock. All smeared in blood and dirt and mud. All of their chests heaving, the same as his, breathing ragged and exhausted. All slumped and doubled, but arms raised, visors forward.

Hal’s voice snapped Genthus’s vision toward him. Listening to the clear victor, Genthus took the opportunity to adjust his trembling hands’ grip on his beskad, the sword long since depleted of power. As he drew closer, step by step, Genthus braced with each for a charge, lips twitching.

It took a few seconds for what was being said to make it past the instinct dominating his brain and process.

Quiet for a moment as it turned over, Genthus was, as with all things, swift. Snapping his head over his shoulder, his hoarse voice was curt.

”Go home, my friends.” Rolling his shoulders, Genthus stood up straighter, raising his trembling beskad.

”When your new Mandalore boasts of his victory, remind him how he won it.” Kicking out of the mud, Genthus broke into a sprint, gait uneven as one leg clearly worked better than the other. Nearing after a second, what spirit remained in him burst out a harrowed war cry as his beskad dipped below the side of his waist. With a final dash, he was upon Hal, giant sword swiping at a diagonal up toward his center.

[Ysmir]

The Kelborn stalwarts stood back at their Mand'alor's command. Slowly, as the situation became less an all-out battle and more a war of honor in their eyes, they lowered the weapons that were once trained on Genthus.

For his part, Hal had left the majority of his weaponry hanging from the magnetic rack attached to Buir. The basilisk droid hummed and whirred as it stood at attention, ready to pounce on command, but the command would not come. He wore only his stunstaff, his Tehk'las, and the armor on his back. The red and white Beskar'gam was dirt crusted and littered with carbon scoring; the few bits of it that did shine reflected the high morning sun which continued to climb into the sky. It cast a hazy light over the two warriors.

The retreating Deshra clan fighters -- what remained of them -- began to fall back into the treeline at Genthus's command. This earned swift reactions from Hal's loyalists, but he quickly raised his fist to halt them even as their slugthrowers and blasters were aimed at the backs of the fleeing men and women.

"Let them go," Hal commanded, staring ahead resolute even as the gigantic Mandalorian began to charge at him headlong. The final cry of defiance, the ultimate battle between the two claimants to the ancient title of Mand'alor. "The final blood shed will be between me and him, and only us."

Hal spun the staff around in his grip, and telescopic weapon extended itself on either end several inches, until it reached a length slightly taller than Hal himself. Then, the device powered on, each point coming to life and crackling viciously with electric pulses. Just as Genthus reached Hal and brought his saber up in a diagonal slash, the beskar staff caught the blade mid-stroke and parried it with a TWANG. Despite the size difference, Hal made up for his lack of reach and height with alarming physical strength augmented by his cybernetic left arm. Hal shifted his right foot back as their weapons met, moving his weight to throw the charging Genthus off-balance. Spinning, he bucked Genthus square in the back with the reverse end of his staff; the electrified tip knocked harmlessly off of the Mandalorian's beskar'gam, but possessed enough force to nearly topple him to the ground.

Disengaging, Hal quickly backpedaled away and maintained a defensive stance while Genthus recovered. With measured steps, Hal circled Genthus like a Tuk'ata circling its prey.

"Your pride knows no bounds. There's honor in admitting defeat," Hal lectured, but he seemed to catch himself mere seconds after. "But then, I suppose there's honor in no surrender as well."

Kicking forward across the muddied forest floor, Hal spun and jabbed the end of his staff forth across the gap, making use of its reach to try and prod Genthus in an unprotected portion of his torso.

[Fromikeable]

Genthus didn’t hear much after the twang of beskar on beskar. He didn’t see much beyond Hal as the older man sidestepped him, causing him to stumble forward and land hard on his bad leg. Turning in preparation for an imminent second horizontal slash, he didn’t feel much beyond the sharp, debilitating shock and pain in his back as Hal’s staff made contact with it, sparing him the worst of the electrical pain and impulses, but eliminating what little remained of his balance. As Genthus flopped face-first into the mud of their battlefield, he didn’t hear, see, or feel much of anything.

Just shame, and wrath over feeling ashamed.

Trembling arms came back to life after a second of failing respite, pushing Genthus out of the mud with extreme effort. Snorting like a beast, Genthus got to his feet one leg at a time. Barely cognizant of the fact that his beskad had slipped from his grip, his shoulders heaved as his hands balled into fists and raised to a fighting position, wobbling slightly with the rest of his upper body.

Hal said something about… surrender? Genthus didn’t even try to decipher the sentence through his exhaustion this time. ”Just keep going…” The muttering barely made it beyond Genthus’s helmet as Hal resumed the attack, the man’s reflexes still more than sharp enough to catch the beleaguered Deshra off-guard. The hit connected, piercing through a dented gap in the beskar’gam and almost making contact with the inner mesh. This time there was no absence of shock; everything from Genthus’s chest to his shoulders flared with pain, tensing in an instant.

Genthus responded with a broken roar, bashing the staff away with a gauntlet. Seizing on the advantage of size, it only took two quick strides forward to close the gap with Hal, a full-bodied left hook seizing on the momentum. But as the second step landed and Hal began to respond, Genthus found no purchase in the slick mud; he was simply too much mass moving much too quickly. What started as a punch turned into a frantic flail to grab Hal by the helmet, the shoulder, anything that could be reached, and drag him down with the already-falling Genthus.

[Ysmir]

Seeing Genthus this way caused a pang of guilt to ring in Mandalore's heart. The look in the proud warrior's eye was more akin to an animal than one of the Mando'ade, one that had been backed into a corner and violently refused to back down even a little bit. Perhaps it spoke to his nature as an apex predator; in his heart of hearts, he simply couldn't accept the fact that an ideal other than his own was poised to claim victory on this day. Hal could sympathize with that, at the very least. No being ever wanted to confront their own failure.

But Hal had done it before, learned to pick himself up and dust off his mistakes. Soon, he hoped, Genthus would too.

Though he wouldn't make it easy.

Despite the surge of electric pain coursing through Genthus' body, the man was almost superhumanly resilient. Where a shock like that would drop lesser beings to their knees, the Champion roared in defiance and batted Hal's staff aside. Beneath his helm, Hal wore a look of surprise and, dare one say, admiration at his pure power. The Mandalorian's advance was too quick to intercept, and Hal was forced to lift his staff defensively. Genthus' fist collided with the staff, holding enough strength behind it to press it back into Hal's chest and send him sliding across the muddy ground. Hal grunted, and quickly stepped to the side as Genthus continued advancing. However, the size was still an advantage - despite avoiding him, Genthus' flailing hand found its mark on the antennae of Hal's helmet. Meaty fingers latched onto the smaller man's head and yanked him downward, earning a gasp of surprise as Hal was brought facefirst into the muck.

The blow was hardly noteworthy in terms of damaging effect, but earned Genthus enough time to, perhaps, scramble to his feet. Hal himself quickly regained his composure and pushed himself up. Mud clung to his torso in various places, and most notably was smeared across the visor of his helmet, obscuring his vision. With his free hand, Mandalore reached upward and pulled the helmet free from his head. Breathing deeply through his nose, he tossed the helm aside and stared across to his rival.

"Last chance, Genthus," Hal barked, dropping the stunstaff by his feet. From his back, he pulled free his dual Tehk'la blades with both hands, spinning the curved knives into a reversed grip. "Stand down."

[Fromikeable]

The world went dark as Genthus smashed into the mud, the impact’s low intensity amplified by every pain and injury he already had. His body was beginning to fail; the fall had twisted his leg, the smack of his helmet against his own head was only the first of many he’d sustained today, and long-broken seals now leaked one part blood to every five parts sweat.

All of these culminated in Genthus failing to recognize where he was for a moment, his consciousness fading. He was exhausted, hurt, and played out. Sounds were losing their definition, and the darkness of the mud below his helmet was incredibly inviting for him to simply close his eyes and rest.

But a part of him made his shaky limbs continue to move, one at a time now, fruitless in the slick mud. A part of him that couldn’t form a complete sentence any more.

If Hal’s rise from the mud was slow, then Genthus’s was glacial. His dominant arm tried and failed to push against the slick ground before finally finding purchase on a small rock. Even then, it took two shaking tries for Genthus to even flip himself on to his side, grunting with what few faculties he had left. Standing took more than a minute, and he never quite made it; every time Genthus would try to stand up straight, a leg would shake that much harder, giving way and forcing him his knees in the mud.

Through the mud and the pain, he could just barely make out Hal, every moment making the world darker and darker. Blood loss, perhaps? He was beyond being able to even consider it. Another step forward, and another collapse. Another attempt to stand, and he was on his hands and knees. Even then, staring at the mud below swallowing his hands, Genthus crawled. And when an arm gave way and smashed his face into the mud again, he still put one arm in front of the other, dragging himself across the ground.

When his helmet butted against something solid, he seemed to shake the hardest he yet had. One arm followed the other in sliding forward, grasping at what turned out to be Hal’s boots. Fingers twitching and breathing turning more ragged by the moment, Genthus’s fingers found his heels after a moment, grabbing them as hard as he could.

And… nothing. No pulling. No striking. No defiant statement. No roar of outrage. Not even a sob or a gasp, a confirmation that Genthus was still even conscious. Just his hulking frame face-down in the mud, hands utilizing what little mind and body he still had left to hold on to his opponent, to refuse to concede.

The grip would offer little resistance to escape. With a smoking keep in the distance and a sea of warriors around him, Mandalore the Champion died in the filth of final defeat, leaving behind only the burnt, bludgeoned, beaten, unconscious remains of Genthus Sigurd Deshra barely breathing at the feet of the new, true Mandalore.