— Podry —
Podry wasn't blind to the narrative playing out on Circumtore. Or his active role in it.
It was like one of Mighty Leia's stories. One of her histories, her Legends. Only now, he was part of it. He was helping write a story of their shared kinship with his actions.
Would he be spoken of in the night? Across a thousand worlds, would the boy destined to die nameless in the fighting pits be remembered? Treasured? Immortalized? Would he be even some of the enduring, inspiring hope that shone through his countless siblings' chains?
He'd founded the Freest Legion. He did so because the fight was all he'd ever known. He did it so he'd have a place and a purpose once he'd found out freedom was honestly rather daunting for a boy who fully believed he would die fighting in the pits. He did it because it was all he felt he could do, even after broken chains. It was selfish like that, in a way. Selfless, in another (or so De'vi told him).
Now, the Freest Legion he'd founded when he didn't know anything else about life but the fight, when he'd had no clue what to do with his newfound freedom, had become so much more.
Podry never could've predicted it. It still boggled his mind. It still humbled him.
There were others like him. Others who knew nothing else but the fight. Or others still who were willing to learn the fight for those still chained. Freedom from chains… and still, so many had chosen to join him as he continued the only life he'd ever known.
Millions of them, willing to fight, willing to die. And Podry had the responsibility of leading them in that fight, to those deaths. He didn't think he was ready. He didn't think he ever would be.
But the Freest Legion was already real. It existed; there was no going back on that. If Podry didn't stand at its fore despite his anxieties, his unworthiness, his near certainty that he wasn't enough… he'd be spitting in the faces of brothers and sisters and Mighty Leia above all.
And so, he stood. As he always had. Facing the fight, with Mighty Leia at his back and driving Spite against choking chains in his heart. He wouldn't break. He wouldn't bend. He wouldn't bow, never again. More souls than just his own needed him to keep standing, keep fighting. Podry would do right by them, his Freest Legion and all of their still-chained siblings.
On Circumtore, Podry and his Freest Legion were confronted with their opposites. Chained Legions. For them, too, there was only the fight. But they had no choice in it. So the Freest Legion would fight to give those Chained Legions such a choice, fully prepared to give their own lives to see that chance realized.
He'd been sent ahead of the crusade, leading a strike team of the Freest Legion according to Atom's plan of battle. Masters would fall before them. Siblings would be saved. The world would know a legion that truly was the Freest of the Freed.
Fears and worries, limits, Podry and his Freest Legion pushed past it all. Their still-chained siblings would live to see another night of Mighty Leia's Sky, and they would do so Free.
Riding a steel steed, Podry charged into the den of concentrated, chaining evil on Circumtore. The capital city of Circuit was an urban sprawl he was used to. It was dense, labyrinthine in places, and sectioned off by Shell Hutt master. It was cruel, as nature could never be. Only intelligence could drive such chains.
Millions of his siblings lived there. Millions more had died, some never seeing Mighty Leia's Sky. But no more, not after Mighty Leia's crusade was done with the world. Those chains could break. They would.
Podry knew the narrative. He knew his role. He played it to perfection. The slave legions of Circumtore would see salvation in their Freest Legion counterparts.
He'd named his Mek steed 'Deliverance': a reminder. If he didn't stand for it, stand with Deliverance, he stood for nothing, stood with nothing. The fight was all he'd ever known. Now, he turned that tragic existence toward a greater purpose. Now, he turned it toward deliverance.
Whatever it took, Podry would deliver the freedom he now grasped to still-chained siblings.
Deliverance was a Gen2 Mek, on the shorter side of its peers at 'merely' 7 meters. It was outfitted with a massive Gauss cannon on its shoulder, a heavy blaster on its arm, and the sword and shield that Podry was most used to from his time in the pits, now Mek-scaled.
So much damage — so much deliverance — lay at Podry's fingertips, the merest twitch of his mind, within its cockpit. And as she always had been in the pits, Mighty Leia was with him. She joined him and Deliverance now, standing over their Gauss-cannon-mounted shoulder. She was an embrace from behind, one Podry could feel even through steel.
He was honored by her presence, always standing at his back. Within his steel steed, he carried out her dirtiest, bloodiest work. He was the sword and shield in her starry arms. He was the cannon of her wrath, chosen to enforce her freedom. Blessed with purpose, with deliverance, he was her paladin.
The capital of Circumtore shook as he carried out his purpose. A dozen strike teams descended upon it. A dozen ripping, tearing blades into Circumtore's very core. Meks of MaxTac, nigh-Legendary edgerunners, corpo samurai, and the Freest Legion split to cover the whole city, to break every chain within. They worked their devastating work with methodical chaos.
There was the sound of violence on the horizon, near and far. Blasterfire, Gauss retorts, shattering scattershot, armor cleaved, and flesh flatlined. It was spread throughout the capital by the coordinated strike teams, working together where the Hutts utterly failed to.
Podry was in the thick of it, just like all the others who led their elite strike teams to devastating effect.
Another legion sector had its leading Shell Hutts toppled into the dirt by Podry's Gen2 and Freest Legion Gen3s. Deliverance's deadly Gauss cannon tore the main armored slug in two, the hypersonic projectile penetrating deflector shield and reinforced durasteel and sluggin' flesh. The secondary Shell Hutt of the sector fell to concentrated fire from the Gen3s under Podry's command.
Then, only the slaves of the sector remained. They were free. They didn't — couldn't — know that. With everything happening so quickly, the truth of the crusade didn't have any chance to set in, even if the masters would've allowed it to. It fell to Podry to break the news.
His strike team took a moment to regroup in the now headless sector. The legion that occupied it slowly came to witness the carnage and its aftermath. Siblings, now without direction — they wore piecemeal armor that brought terrible memories of the pits to Podry's mind. This legion had been sent into the fight with single pieces of rusted iron on their bodies.
Podry couldn't tell if that was a sign of the legion master's poverty and poor status, or if it was a purposeful thing. He could see it either way. Some masters would find it hilarious to send chained souls to their deaths in mere cloth and rust.
His fighting siblings, in their sorry states, stared at the corpses of their legion masters, uncomprehending. There was an eerie, broken stillness in the air. And worse still, those siblings didn't recognize them. Even after killing their masters, breaking their most immediate chains, and bearing shared stars in their breasts, the slave legion didn't recognize their Freest counterparts.
Empty, terrified eyes passed right over Podry and his strike team. The sheer wrongness of it hurt. Podry didn't know what to do, didn't know how to make his siblings recognize him. Deliverance shifted, and they flinched.
Podry popped himself out of his Mek. He stared down at the siblings he was delivering freedom to. Words failed him. All he knew was the fight.
Thankfully, his strike team wasn't composed of only fighters. De'vi followed him out of Deliverance's cockpit from the jumpseat she was riding in behind him. She would know what to do, what to say. If Podry was Mighty Leia's sword and shield, De'vi was her heart, her compassion, and the shine of her shared stars.
"We are kin. Brothers and sisters, connected by a Starry Sister above us all. You are not alone. Never again," De'vi said, her voice quiet but carrying through the scene of carnage.
It was a statement of fact. A reminder. And as those simple words broke through the slave legion's empty stares, Podry thought that De'vi's voice would always be stronger than his sword arm.
The light of stars rose in those empty eyes. It was slow. Terribly sluggish. But De'vi spoke — soft, sweet, and sanguine — and the slave legion, those forgotten siblings, listened. They remembered.
"'There exists no chain that cannot be broken. It hasn't been forged now, and it never will be.'" De'vi quoted Mighty Leia's most fundamental truth.
"No matter how heavy your chains have weighed upon you, she has never forgotten about you. You are hers, and she is yours. Siblings. We've come for you now. No master shall ever lay chains upon you ever again. They are broken; you are free."
From De'vi's lips, the truth of their presence, the effects of their actions, was impossible to deny. The reactions from the no-longer-slave legion were many.
Some collapsed in relief, heavy, puppeteering chains cut. Some cried, silently or loudly. Some roared rightful anger, pain, and the lived tragedies of lifetimes to the heavens. Some approached the strike team cautiously, reaching out to touch and test if they were real.
No matter the reaction, Mighty Leia welcomed them to freedom with open arms through Podry's Freest Legion and De'vi's freest of words.
Like all the sectors they'd already cleared and legions they'd already freed, Podry hated leaving this one behind. But their deliverance was far from over.
Freed supporters were filtering into the city through the paths the dozen strike teams cleared. They saw to it that every liberated legion left behind was taken care of. Food, water, healing, reassurances, and general support followed in the seizing wake of each strike team, ensuring the sectors and the legions within couldn't fall back under Shell Hutt control.
Tendrils of crusade-claimed territory crept into the city from a dozen angles, sector by sector. They'd taken much, already, and more would fall to them in the hours to come. Each inch of territory came on the dead backs of slugs, the dead shells of snails. Thousands of masters had been flatlined, and dozens more were flatlining by the minute.
Smasher's strike team advanced the quickest, but they were only concerned with the chain-breaking violence. Rehabilitation was left to the Freed behind them. It was a strange kindness, honestly. Podry almost laughed at the idea of Smasher stopping for the broken chains he left in his wake.
The other strike teams cut their paths more similarly to Podry's. One legion sector at a time, break the Shell Hutt masters and their chains, and then hold until reinforcements and Freed support could catch up. Across the city, Circumtore's slave legions were freed by the Freest Legion, by Core Gonks and Jedi Knights, by MaxTac commandos, corpo samurai, and nigh-Legendary edgerunners — all while Gonk netrunners led by Nova disrupted Shell Hutt communications, remote chains, and petty dead man switches.
Working sector by sector, Shell Hutts fell one, two, or three at a time. It was death by a thousand isolated cuts. The Shell Hutts mounted no coordinated or unified defense. They fought for themselves, Hutt Warriors of Old, and they died by themselves. And with each fallen sector, the crusade took more and more of Circumtore from its loathsome masters.
On and on, Podry and his strike team advanced. They destroyed the Shell Hutt masters and the chains they held. Then, they were struck by the ever-present reality of the reveal, the reminder, the revival of hope long dead.
They couldn't leave their newly freed siblings alone in broken chains. It would be cruel, setting them adrift in daunting freedom. It would be wrong, abandoning siblings when they needed them most. The fight was only half of the crusade, and in some ways, the smaller half, at that.
The return, the resuscitation, the rehabilitation couldn't be ignored. Anyone could fight. They just needed the will in their heart. Few could heal.
And the slave legions of Circumtore needed healing more than they needed anything else after their chains were broken.
For that, Podry was glad to have De'vi by his side. She'd helped pick up the pieces for his own freedom. She devoted herself, completely, to the task of helping her siblings, however they needed it most.
Podry might lead the charge on a steel steed of Deliverance, but De'vi shone like the sun over that charge. She broke the news; she revived shared stars; she took on the hardest tasks for her chained siblings.
"Remember Mighty Leia, our Starry Sister," She would say.
And in heartbreaking moments every time, Circumtore would remember.
"Begin to feel her embrace all over again, for she never left you."
And newly-unchained souls would feel again. They screamed and cried and sang, all notes in the song of newfound freedom.
"Don't blame yourselves for the actions of chains. Choice was taken from you. Now, all that matters is that you survived, and that those who didn't have already rejoined Mighty Leia's Sky. You can celebrate; you can mourn; you can be whole. The freedom is now yours."
And then came the tears, the anger, the regret and relief, the frantic, screaming, mourning, celebrating, manic mess of emotions unchained. Whatever could be felt was. For they were free to feel again, at last…
There was little humor in Circumtore's situation. And still, laughter could be found in the tragedy. Laughter and tears and so much more. Forced, or earnest, or simply confused, emotions poured forth into the unchained void.
One legion fell into cackles at the reveal. It was how they'd been broken by their master. The Laughing Legion, but with broken chains, broken laughter became more real. The Laughing Legion found real humor, tragic humor, in their situation. They laughed, not by chains, but by choice, at how twisted, how broken they'd become.
It was all they knew. But like Podry, they now had the chance to turn all they'd known in chains into something better, something wholly theirs.
The chains of Circumtore stripped so much from those they fell upon. They were strong here, too strong, abominably strong. Even knowing the reason — Loathsome Malik's First-Slaving corpse-influence — Podry could barely believe seeing it for himself.
More than any siblings of Free Nar Shaddaa, the siblings of Circumtore had been torn away at until nothing but chains remained. They'd been dragged down to drown in the darkest depths of enslaved experience, where not even stars could be seen above. Even Mighty Leia had been ripped from their minds. But through it all, one truth remained. It wasn't seen, wasn't remembered, but there was always a shared star burning — dim but ever-present — in every chained soul.
Another legion simply stared as their chains were broken. They stood like statues at attention, even freedom of movement ripped from them. Unseeing eyes watched their master fall to Podry's strike team. And even when De'vi spelled out the new truth to them, they didn't flinch an inch.
De'vi called upon Podry then. He was honored to help her, even if he didn't know how without her direction.
She told him to hold Deliverance's sword high. She told him to call Mighty Leia's starry light into the massive blade until it shone like one of her stars. She told him that words would inevitably fail this legion, that only action could pull mental chains taut so they could be broken in truth.
"Legion to legion, fighting soul to fighting soul," She told him. "You know their plight, Podry. You know how the fight in chains can break a sibling. Call out to them, not with your voice, but with the very nature, the very life you share with them."
Podry thought he understood. This legion was so broken to chains that they'd forgotten their words, their movements, their very selves outside the fight. He'd seen it before in the pits. Back then, brothers in this state never lasted long.
So Podry and Deliverance reached out to them as those who knew the fight, too. Mek-scale sword and shield clanged together once, a challenge issued, a challenge resolved, that any fighting slave would hear. The sword was raised. It began to shine.
Mighty Leia's ethereal form clung to his back, peeking over his shoulder — a cloak of stars for her paladin. Podry dug deep into memories he could never forget.
More than their starry kinship, they were kin of the fight. And in the pits, when one brother triumphed, when they survived to return to their brothers back in the barracks, they would make the victory known. Almost feral, always enduring, never broken, they would shout such that the masters thought it was one of victory. It wasn't, not fully. It was a reassurance, a roll call to let the audience that mattered most know they survived another day, another fight.
They would sound off, not just their victory, but their return. They shouted victory to pay homage to brothers fallen, to brothers who still lived and waited for them, and to another day, another fight.
Podry brought that same shout forth from his past. With shining sword, he declared his victory and his return. There were no words to the shout, only emotion. Sacrifice, endurance, victory, homecoming, the conquest of another fight they were forced into by chains.
And even chained systems apart, fighting slaves recognized fighting slaves. The broken legion blinked; they reacted, finally. Without hesitation, they roared back at Podry, matching his roar of return with one of welcome.
They didn't know him. But they knew the sound of a returning brother, of endurance overcoming fighting chains, and finally, they began to look around with the barest scraps of agency clung to in the safety of fighting pit barracks. As they did, they saw fallen masters and broken chains.
Then, the real work could begin. De'vi took back up her healing role once the broken legion was roused, once they could hear and see and feel more than the fight. Podry got through to painfully familiar kin, and De'vi began to pick up their broken pieces in newfound freedom.
Leaving that broken legion, those painfully familiar fighting kin, behind hurt Podry the most, even if he knew Freed support was right behind his strike team. He did, though, leaving them with a promise he knew they would understand: a brother who would return.
Deliverance called, needed by those siblings still chained; Podry and De'vi answered.
As they went on to continue Mighty Leia's good, crusading work, De'vi spared a few of her powerful words for Podry. Her voice was as soft and sweet as ever. Her thoughts meant everything to him; she'd proven herself worthy of that much esteem from the very first time Podry laid eyes on her and her shining star.
"Thank you, Podry. I know that couldn't have been easy for you."
"It… wasn't," Podry admitted. "But it wasn't hard, either. I've done that hundreds of times before. I was lucky enough to do it every time, to keep returning…"
"You survived," De'vi said, compassionate and understanding. "There is strength in that. And thanks to it, you could show those broken siblings that they survived, too."
"Hn," Podry half-hummed, half-grunted. Words failed him. They tended to when the fight was all he truly knew.
She said there was strength in him, but Podry couldn't help but feel that De'vi was so much stronger, facing the galaxy with a sunshine smile and kindness to spare for all her siblings.
From the jumpseat in Deliverance's cockpit, De'vi leaned forward. She wrapped her arms around him like Mighty Leia's ethereal starry form did. Podry almost jumped, even if the embrace was as gentle as could be.
"Good job, Podry," She whispered sweetly in his ear. "It's never said often enough, but sometimes it's all we need to hear. Good job, Podry. Know that you can be proud, know that you're doing all you can.
"You're more than you think of yourself. And if you have trouble realizing that, I'll tell you over and over again. As many times as you need. You do your star proud. Good job, Podry."
Her words sank in, and Podry realized he'd never heard them said to him before. Not that he could remember. There was no one in the pits to give him that simple reassurance. De'vi's proud praise settled over his mind; nothing Podry could say would convey his gratitude in return.
Still, he had to try, "… Of all the stars in Mighty Leia's Sky, I think you shine the brightest, De'vi."
For some reason, his probably poor attempt at returning her praise sent De'vi into giggles, clutching him tighter. Her lekku even joined the hug, wrapping around his neck in a way that should've been choking but was just comfortable. They were warm, and her giggles sounded like bells and sunshine in his ear. It was perfect, but he didn't know what he'd done to deserve this, deserve her.
All he knew was that he would always treasure the sun shining in his life, even in the middle of Mighty Leia's crusade, for she'd changed it just as much as freedom had.
Then, De'vi laid a gentle kiss on his cheek, as soft and sweet as her voice, and Podry's mind ceased to function.
"Good job, Podry."
Deliverance called, and Podry would always answer. But if sunshine kisses were an extra reward, just for him… Podry would free whole worlds all on his own.
IIIII
— Victor Armis Caesar —
Caesar had been burned. He was one of the first of Cirucmtore to feel the invaders' scorching intrusion. Their terrible, unjust, abominable actions, consequences falling upon all of Circumtore, all their Warriors of Old.
These lesser beings brought war to Circumtore, haven of the truest Hutts. They brought death and destruction to the rightful state of being. Hutts were supreme. These invaders contested that fundamental truth. They bucked and rebelled against the natural order. And they, Caesar swore, would feel the bite most gravely when that natural order reasserted itself.
As one of the first to be burned, Caesar found himself with the most time to react out of his peers. He'd lost much, to be sure. His Legio Ferrata, his Lordly Hutt underling, but nothing was hopeless, even now.
He was a Warrior of Old. He would adapt. He would fight as his ancestors did. He would make these lesser beings pay for their terrible transgressions.
The tables had been turned on him. He would turn them back. He only needed time and space to plot and an army to bring these invaders to rightful heel. Caesar was forced to accept this turn of fate. But in turning fate, there was potential. And there could still be victory, in line with his chosen name. Victor Armis Caesar did not lose.
The natural order — Hutts above all — could not be denied for long. This upstart movement was young and fallible, as all lesser beings were. They took their success to mean they had any chance at all. But the Hutts were eternal. Even if the very worst came to pass, all they had to do was wait. The upstarts would expire, as all lesser beings did.
In the meantime, they did a twisted sort of duty for the Hutts they fought. They trimmed the tree.
Weakness and chaff were pruned away. Rivals were eliminated. Petty squabbles were rendered irrelevant. In the end, only the truest Hutts would remain. Only the Warriors of Old; only the strongest survivors of the Shell; only the most cunning, most powerful, most worthy.
This, too — like the undeniable order of things — was natural. The Hutts did it themselves, the reason for their internal games and contests. The powerful, the rich, and the influential inevitably emerged victorious. The weak were cut down, the poor were subsumed, and the insignificant were forgotten.
In the grand scheme of the Hutts — from empire to cartels — this upstart movement had done nothing. Nar Shaddaa? Nal Hutta? Important worlds, no doubt. But important to the public, outward face of Hutt superiority, not its core and fundamental heart.
Nal Hutta was a vacation world, honestly, even if the Grand Council fashioned itself as ruling from it. Nar Shaddaa was more sorely missed, but still, it was only one world. Hundreds more populated Hutt Space, some just as strategically potent as Nar Shaddaa.
Their people would persist. Their reign would remain; their superiority unimpeachable. It was the natural order of things. This fleeting upstart movement was only fortifying that order, no matter the success they thought they'd seen so far.
Nar Shaddaa, Nal Hutta, and now, Circumtore? Caesar was pragmatic enough to know that such success was merely a flesh wound on the hulking mass of Hutt Space.
The last still burned, however, for it was his flesh that was being wounded. Circumtore, proudest of Hutt Space, the haven of the Hutt Warriors of Old. Guardians of the Gate to Hutt Space. Templars of noble slugging culture. Those armored in shells were the most worthy of Hutts, but they were also mostly content to ignore the rest of their species.
Hutts outside of Circumtore were barely worth the flab of their forms by Shell Hutt standards. They were still Hutts, at least, and thus, still inherently superior to the rest of the galaxy. But most had completely abandoned the old ways, the true ways of the Hutts when they were conquering warriors, not merely conquering merchants. The Shell Hutts preferred to avoid the wider games of their species, as a result, lest they invite modern weakness unto themselves.
Such preferable isolation likely wouldn't be possible for much longer. Not after the invasion of their haven. Caesar was already planning his escape and all that would come after.
He'd been burned. He'd also been given the time he needed to react to that burn. Warriors of Old did not flee. But Caesar would take a tactical retreat so he didn't suffer complete defeat.
The capital was already lost to them. The invaders might be lesser beings, upstarts, but 'lesser' could still be effective. Caesar could see that, even if some of his peers couldn't. They were staying to fight and die, like fools. A blaze of glory was respectable, but not if it accomplished next to nothing.
Caesar was not so proud as to doom himself to the same when he already had nothing left to lose. Anything for victory.
His name had long held weight in Shell Hutt society. His legion won victory after victory over the legions of his peers. They were equipped and outfitted to show his immense wealth. And Caesar himself could proudly and confidently boast that his shell and skills stood at the peak of the Warriors of Old.
While that legion had been stripped from him by the invaders, his shell, skills, and status had not. Such boons allowed him to rally what peers he could reach in the invaders' chaos. He forced them into line as the only Hutt with a plan.
A thousand Warriors of Old were rallied under his leadership as if Caesar were rebuilding his Legio Ferrata with inherently superior stock. He forced his new legion out of the city while the invaders were occupied with five thousand more Shell Hutt blazes of glory.
He didn't immediately attempt his escape from Circumtore, however. He sought to salvage everything he possibly could from his homeworld first. For Circumtore had a secret, a powerful one, so great and terrible that the invaders couldn't have spoiled it. And Caesar would make that secret their downfall.
Located deep within the icy inner band of Circumtore, there was an outpost. It protected and researched Circumtore's great and terrible secret. There was little doubt that their world was artificially made by powerful beings long passed. Many other worlds and systems in the galaxy could claim the same. None but Circumtore could claim the corpse of one of those powerful, Celestial beings.
Now, on his escape, Caesar intended to claim that corpse in truth. He would take what he could from it, honor it by allowing it to be harnessed by Hutts. He would twist what remained of its Celestial power to his inevitable victory another day.
And so, he came to the inner band of Circumtore. The detour served another purpose, too. It hid Caesar and his rallied remnants from the invaders. The inner band of the world was dark and desolate, an icy hellscape beneath a dead god. Caesar would keep his remnants there until the ultimate harvest was complete.
The outpost beneath the Celestial corpse was manned by Hutts, of course. Something so important couldn't be left to lesser beings. The Hutts who chose this isolated life, even by Circumtore's standards, were strange, though.
They abstained from the usual, noble Hutt ways, both modern and old. They spent their slime-gifted years staring up into the darkness. They lived and breathed the corpse. In an odd, discomforting way, it was all they knew.
Upon arrival, Caesar was greeted by Hutts who'd forgotten their names. Like slaves. They moved with one purpose and one purpose alone: the corpse. They'd even abandoned their shells. It was wrong; so very wrong to see superior Hutts reduced to chained chaff. But Caesar knew he wouldn't fall to the same depths as these pathetic Hutts. He was stronger, always victorious in the end, and he would use everything to grasp that victory.
"A pilgrimage?" One of the outpost Hutts asked.
"A harvest," Caesar snarled in reply.
Strangely, the pathetically reduced Hutts didn't stand in his way. They almost welcomed him to their corpse-god, eager that the thing they devoted their lives to would finally be used. They'd taken bits and pieces of the corpse into the outpost to research. Caesar saw one, a nugget of corpse-flesh, and possibilities exploded in his superior mind.
The flesh was black iron. It drank deeply of its surroundings on every level, chaining reality to its dead will. Light and sound, energy and force, all fell to chaining black iron corpse-flesh.
The pathetic Hutts of the outpost looked upon the nugget with slavish reverence. The weak, follower Hutts Caesar had rallied to his escape shied away from it like cowards. Caesar, though, saw potential.
His legion of iron, rebuilt in armored shells of pure black. Invincible Warriors of Old, Templars donning the flesh of a dead god. And something whispered in his mind that those clad in black iron would be forever chained to his will, his victory.
Caesar wasn't dull. He saw the trap. He saw the long-dead influence attempting to chain his mind. He simply didn't care. Whatever price he had to pay, whatever chains he had to cast upon weak peers, Victor Armis Caesar would have his victory.
Today, Caesar was forced to accept defeat. That stung, but he had survived. He escaped with an impressive force behind him, a thousand Warriors of Old, and an impossible harvest, dead divinity waiting to be twisted to his every victory.
The corpse was stripped bare by mining drones, coming apart as if it wished to be repurposed. Caesar loaded his harvest onto the pleasure barges and yachts he had available. And further, he ordered hasty plates of the black iron flesh to cover the ships.
Blitzing past the invaders' blockade, the harvest proved its worth. They were untouchable, starship-grade weaponry failing to find any hole in the impossible defense. Once clear of the system, forced to leave Circumtore behind, Caesar turned his escaping fleet toward Bootana Hutta, the core sector of Hutt Space.
There lay the true Hutt throneworlds, the true heart of Hutt power. There, a truly unified force of superior Hutts could be rallied. There, in their garden surrounding the remains of the original homeworld, Caesar would rebuild his legion in black iron.
Then, with black iron chained to his back, with Hutt warriors clad in dead divinity, Caesar would return to decimate the upstarts that dared invade his natural order, his victory.
These upstart 'Gonks' may have won the day on Circumtore. But soon, they would stare up from bloody dirt and curse the name… Victor Armis Caesar.
IIIII
[AN: I was initially planning a more normal climax for this arc (big final battle or whatever), but I think this sort of anti-climax is better. 'Cause the conquest of Circumtore has shown me something about the Gonk-Hutt War, that being that it's essentially One Side (Gonks) vs. A few million sides (Hutts). There's no organized or unified resistance from the Hutts. They don't work together on any significant scale, and a lot of them still aren't taking the Gonks seriously.
If there's gonna be an actual war worth the name, the Hutts need to be forced to work together. Otherwise, it'll just end up with a hundred similar Gonk steamrolls on a hundred Hutt planets, picking the disorganized Hutts apart piecemeal. I figured Caesar is as good a character as any to do that for the Hutts, with the help of a little weaponized sacrilege to get him started. So really, the anti-climax of this arc is to set up better climaxes in the future once I return to this story.
That's all for KYBER-PUNK's return, though, along with, ya know, the other war going on in the galaxy. I need a break from this story for now. There will be one more chapter after this one to sort of settle into the hiatus and give Fay her chance at overdue smut.
Then, it's onto Dragon business :]