KYBER-PUNK 22BBY [Inspired Inventor+]

— Podry —

When Podry was born, the galaxy seemed to hold its breath. At least, that's what he remembered his mother saying. He was still young when that story was told to him, so young, so innocent, and so sheltered from the dark truth his life would become.

Still, he remembered what his mother claimed to everyone willing to listen. How the galaxy held its breath. How his father fainted outright, the opposite of sorrow overtaking him. How she had labored and labored to bring her babe life. How his first cry had split the air, and how his mother never seemed more at peace than when she told the story.

Born to that stolen moment, Podry's first years were a blissful peace that he could no longer remember. Vague feelings of warmth and safety were all that remained. Merely whispers of how the world should be. But 'should' was just a word on the wind, and reality wasn't nearly so kind.

When Podry was five, his world came crumbling down. Never to recover. He didn't remember being taken. Not clearly. Just fire and smoke and his mother's muffled sobs as she cradled him through it all. His blissful peace died on that day, still so hazy in his memory.

But at first, all was as well as it could be. Taken — stolen — as they were, Podry wasn't separated from his mother and father. Even as his fate shifted, Mother clutched him to her breast and Father stood strong behind her. They cherished him. Protected him from the worst weight of the chains.

In truth, he barely noticed the shift. The fundamental change to everything he knew. The loss of a life he would never know enough of to claim. They were far from that lost home, but Podry was never alone. And that was enough to keep his childhood alive for a little while longer.

When Podry was eight, he learned what had changed. He learned what it meant to be a slave. Vaguely, at first, in the only way a child could know such a thing. He learned the word 'Master' and the way his parents seemed to dwindle by the day. He learned it wasn't always this way from the hushed stories Mother and Father told him in the bed for one they all shared.

And as young as he was, Podry escaped the worst attention from those who held their chains. When he was put to work crawling through tight spaces only a child could, he only saw a game to be played. He still laughed and loved and made friends with the other children. But as the years went on, his parents… didn't.

That Podry noticed. And when he did, he began to see that they lived only for him. Everywhere else, their hope was steadily draining. They kept their warmth and smiles and hugs for him. But even a child could see the cracks when they were shoved in his face.

It was then that Podry began to realize the weight of chains. Awful, horrible, bad things that bound his parents more than him in his youth. But he was a child of eight. What could he do?

Even his rambling chatter about the working games he 'played' during his days seemed to drain Mother and Father when they heard. Nothing lifted their spirits, and Podry knew what it meant to be powerless.

Going through the motions, years powerlessly passed him by. Going through the motions, Podry's parents wasted away. He stopped laughing so freely. He stopped making friends. He stopped seeing the 'games' as anything but work forced upon him.

But Podry never, never, stopped loving. He loved his parents until the masters took them from him and never stopped loving their memories afterward.

When Podry was ten, Mother couldn't go on any longer. She'd wasted away too much. A sickness came over her. The masters forced her to work through it. She didn't get better.

Within weeks, the sickness had killed her in the bed where they all slept. His name was the last thing off her lips. Podry held her limp, limp hand until it had long gone cold.

Mother's death broke something in Father. He became a hollow husk of himself. Rarely was Podry able to bring the man he knew to the surface. But even in those scarce moments of clarity, Father could only clutch him and cry. Podry hated the husk just as much as he loved his Father.

When Podry was 11, what was left of his father was taken from him as well. It was a little thing that set it off. A slight, or maybe not even that. Podry didn't even remember the reason the overseers began to beat his father. The result was the same either way. The husk didn't even fight back.

Podry was left alone in the galaxy, chains all he knew. Cruel masters and crueler circumstances. He'd outgrown the working 'games' he'd been forced to play as a youngling, no longer able to fit in the tight spaces required. The masters decided they had little use for him. At 11, Podry was sold to the fighting pits.

He spent his 12th birthday in transit to his new Hell. Where that Hell was, Podry didn't know. He didn't care to know. His new masters talked about this and that between themselves. Podry couldn't bring himself to listen. He couldn't muster the energy to hope or plan. The husk his father had become called to him. Podry was tempted — oh-so-tempted — to heed it.

Yet, for all that had been taken from him by chains piled upon chains, Podry still had his life. The life that his mother had labored and labored to give him. The life that his father had fainted over. The life that made the galaxy hold a breath.

Podry was shoved into the fighting pits by his new masters, and he wanted so badly to give up. To die and join his parents' memories. But Podry found he simply… couldn't. His body and something deep within wouldn't let him.

In that first fight, he was pitted against a ravenous hound. And through the call of the husk, he fought. He clawed and bit and screamed and cried for his life, the only thing he had left. He fought for the memories he still held, for if he wasn't there to remember his parents, who would? He fought to never go hollow like his father did at the end.

When Podry was 13, he struggled for every scrap of survival. His fights escalated. From vermin to beasts to the slaves he slept beside. In the pits, it was every boy for themselves. Yet, they knew they were all the same. Slaves. Chained champions. Wretches who kept pushing on.

Despite themselves, friendships formed between the bunks of the slave barracks. They only made the inevitable fights that much worse, but even then, the boys of the fighting pits couldn't bring themselves to stop.

When Podry was 14, he'd already killed a friend, or two, or five… The deaths weren't always on purpose. The masters wouldn't let a fight end without blood being shed, but the boys learned to hurt each other as little as they could get away with.

Still, much was out of their control. Their tragic friends and their petty rivals — most of all, their brothers-in-chains — would all die eventually. When they did, the masters and their audience would cheer. But all Podry and the other boys knew was another bunk in the barracks being left empty until it was filled, and the process repeated all over again.

Fighting, killing, and surviving became all Podry knew. That, and chains, for the chains were ever-present. There was little comfort to be found in the pits. Only what the boys made for themselves. Anything they thought to call their own was fleeting. Terribly fleeting. Always waiting to be wiped away by another fight to come.

Occasionally, they weren't so alone. Wizened old medicine women came to see them when their collected wounds became too much for even the masters to ignore. Those… were the best of days and the worst. The boys got the breaks they so desperately needed — tasted the peace even other slaves took for granted. But the threat of returning to their routines loomed closer by the second.

Every healing break was inevitably broken by another fight in the end. Fights at their most vicious as the masters pushed to get their money's worth. The fighting boys were only healed to put on better, bloodier shows. They'd come to expect as much, come to dread the breaks as much as they cherished them.

The matronly older women who treated their aches, wounds, and scars were the only connections the boys had to the rest of the galaxy. They were kind and stern, firm and gentle in turn. Some of the boys came to crave them like babes craved their mothers. Mothers they might never have known.

In the barracks, bullying another boy for that craving became the greatest of taboos. All of the boys understood it, even if they remembered their true mothers. Especially then…

Chained in the same Hell, the boys knew their fellows more than the masters could ever comprehend. They were all brothers, forced to fight and kill each other, only for the crying and screaming to come out amongst them those same nights.

Podry was one of the boys who could never bring himself to replace his mother's memory. He could never love like that again, no matter how many times he was healed by those gentle and firm matronly hands.

But as he fought, bled, and cried beside and against the other boys, he came to love in another way. A love between brothers-in-chains, torn and reforged with every blow forced between them. His childhood friendships were nothing compared to the brothers he made in the pits.

When Podry was 15, he heard a story. It was passed to him by one of the medicine women, an old Human widow named Tya. She bound his broken fingers, soothed an old scar, and crooned for him all the while. Hope in chains was whispered. Podry whispered it word for word to his brothers later that night.

"Slaves are never alone," Tya whispered, and Podry later repeated. "Someone is always with us, even when we cannot see and cannot hear them. We can always feel. All slaves have a sister. Mighty Leia went through all of our woes once, and still, she remains. Watching. Commiserating. Shouldering a bit of our burden.

"She is every star in the freedom from the masters that night brings. She is every tear we shed and every scream that tears at our throats. She is by your side, and mine, and all of your brothers. Mighty Leia knows the weight of chains, experienced it once long, long ago, and has never forgotten. When we have hopes and dreams we cannot show the masters; she takes them and hides them safely within herself so that they might be free where we are not.

"Once, dear child, Might Leia was stolen from her stars and chained to masters just like yours. But like her stars, Mighty Leia was impossible to snuff out. The masters covered one of her lights, and another shined through. And when she found brothers and sisters in chains, she gave them each one of her stars to hide for themselves.

"On and on, this went until Might Leia wore herself purposefully thin. Every slave in the galaxy held one of her stars. Beside every brother and sister in chains, she lived on. And the masters were none the wiser. What could their greedy hearts know of sharing, especially something so dear and fundamental to Mighty Leia's being?

"When she was shared and spread, Mighty Leia used her newfound darkness to slip away from the masters' chains. All of her lights were hidden away in her brothers and sisters' most sacred spaces. There was nothing left of her for the masters to bind and chain to their will. The sky was dark and empty as Might Leia returned to it. But she was free. And she vowed to return all of her lights to their proper places.

"So every star in the sky, dear child? It is another of Mighty Leia's brothers and sisters. It is another bit of Mighty Leia that she shared and returned to herself, leaving chains behind. She will continue to do so until only light remains.

"Slaves are never alone, dear child. Mighty Leia is with us, a sister beside us all, sharing our every experience from fleeting happiness to the truest of tragedies."

In the darkness of the fighting pits' barracks, Tya had stared into Podry's eyes, and he could swear hers glowed with truth, "The chain has not yet been made that cannot be broken. It never shall be. Together, we break our chains. Together, we survive through the hardest of times. Together, bondage is broken, slavery is shattered, and freedom may spring eternal.

"Mighty Leia has shared her stars with us, and whatever may come, we shall return them to their proper places."

From then onward, Podry looked for his parents not just in his memories but in the stars. He imagined the other boys did something similar. Every slave tasted freedom in the end, on Mighty Leia's bosom. At his lowest, Podry looked to the sky in the freedom night brought and vowed to return the star that'd been shared with him, one way or another.

When Podry was 16, he knew something had changed. Something had to change. He was one of the oldest boys in the pits. But his survival had come at the cost of victory. And victory came at the cost of attention. He knew — instinctively — that the masters considered him… valuable.

But value in the pits was only based on how much the masters could milk from a boy's eventual death. Podry suspected his time was running out.

At just 16, Podry knew he was old. He was wounded and weathered. Scarred. He knew fighting and nothing else. He saw the tears the medicine women held back when they were confronted with the truth of his life. Podry's had long since dried up. It was only a matter of when his bunk in the barracks would be left empty.

But then, the medicine women began to come around with something strange in their eyes. Disbelief and tentative hope that even those experienced with chains couldn't fully hide. Not the hope of old stories, but something new. They came with rumors on their lips, and through them, Podry and the other boys learned of the world outside the fighting pits.

The medicine women whispered that even the masters had masters. That the world was chained all the way up to the Hutts at the top. Still, Podry instinctively knew they weren't the same chains he and his brothers knew. The masters might answer to other masters, but they were no kin to Mighty Leia.

Thus, truthfully, Podry couldn't give a shit about the masters or their masters. But the medicine women — Tya chiding gently at their head — said that he should. That the Hutts were a true power in the galaxy. And what they did affected the lowest of Mighty Leia's kin. For his younger brothers, Podry needed to listen and learn.

So he did. He listened and learned and thought about the rumors the older slaves brought to the fighting pits. They spoke of conflict against the Hutts and their Clans. Of a spiteful man and a spiteful city leading the righteous charge. Of change coming to the system.

But even if Mighty Leia's freedom was being brought by this spiteful man, it was far removed from Podry and the fighting pits. Practically on the other side of the moon. He understood the tentative hope the older women held, though. In the fighting pits, all of the boys knew spite was a powerful, powerful thing.

Still, any change that was coming was far off from their lives, their worlds. The fights continued. Podry survived. But he felt the flame of his life guttering and burning dangerously low. Soon, the masters would throw him against impossible odds and fight as he might, Podry would die like so many of his brothers before him.

When Podry wasn't quite 17, that final fight came even sooner than he expected. He must've slighted the masters somehow. He would never claim to know their minds. They weren't Mighty Leia's kin, so he didn't want to know them. He lived and died at their whim, but Podry was determined not to make it easy for them. He would never go hollow, not like his father in the end.

Podry had long since come to his fights under his own power. That final fight was no different. Any little bit of control over his chains he could seize, he did. He marched into the pit. It wasn't until his opponent was revealed that he knew it would be his last.

A roar shook the pit. Podry knew it even shook his brothers still in the barracks. From the other side of the pit, a monster lumbered. A 'Rancor,' the masters announced. Podry only saw a painful, gory death.

Podry was one of the biggest boys in the pits. The Rancor towered four times his height and likely eight times his weight. It had claws the size of his thighs and teeth in slobbering jaws the size of his forearms. Its skin was thick, leathery, and warty, and it chuffed and roared with berserk, bestial fury.

All Podry had against the monster was a chipped vibrosword and a primitive shield. No armor. No ranged option. Just like any other of his fights. The door to the pit had already locked behind him. Podry would fight, he would die, and an empty bunk in the barracks was all he would leave behind.

'Mighty Leia,' Podry prayed. 'Look after my brothers when I am gone.'

In the enclosed fighting pit, a warm breeze fell upon Podry's shoulders like embracing arms, and he knew his prayer was heard. He knew Mighty Leia would look after his brothers. He knew his starry sister would stand behind him as he faced his final fight. And when he fell, his star would return to her, leaving all his chains behind.

The Rancor roared. Podry clanged his sword against his shield in reply. The audience cheered and jeered for his blood. They wouldn't be satisfied until the oldest boy in the pits had finally succumbed as they thought all of the boys should.

When the Rancor charged, Podry didn't try to meet it head-on as he would with his brothers. Relatively stumpy legs ran faster than they had any right to. Too-long arms swung outstretched. Podry threw himself to the side.

He rolled and came up on his feet. Only when the Rancor's back was to him and it struggled to bleed off momentum and turn did Podry charge. His legs shook, but he pushed them to muster and move. His arms hesitated, but he pushed them to swing and strike.

Unlike with his brothers, Podry held nothing back. He swung with nearly half a decade of fighting fury, hard-fought experience, and all of the fight for survival he'd ever known. His sword was chipped and didn't 'vibro' half the time, but it'd been with him for years. It was as much a part of him as the Rancor's claws. His steel bit into the back of the Rancor's knee.

The cry of pain from the Rancor transcended the species barrier. Podry heard it and knew that the 'monster' was just the same as him and his brothers. It knew chains. And while it had no one to tell it the stories, Podry would ensure the Rancor's star had a place in Mighty Leia's sky.

But even against a brother-in-chains he'd just found, Podry couldn't afford to let up. The Rancor spun and brought vicious claws with it. Podry barely raised his shield in time. The blow smashed him to the side and sent him sprawling, then scrambling back to his feet.

Faster than he could recover, the Rancor slashed again. Podry's shield cracked with the second impact. He felt something in his shield arm tear. He was lifted off his stumbling feet and thrown across the pit.

The Rancor tried to charge after him, but it was stumbling too. Blood trailed down the back of its leg. Podry was spared enough time to stand once more. His shield arm now took significant effort to raise, but he didn't discard his only defense.

Instead, he pushed himself forward as the Rancor swung and stabbed toward its inner thigh. His chipped blade sunk deep into flesh and blood and tendons. The Rancor kicked with its spasming, struck-through leg. One last time, Podry was able to get his shield between himself and the coming blow. But it gave for good as he did.

Podry was sent flying one way. His shield, with his arm still attached, was sent flying another. He didn't even feel the pain as blood rushed down his side, and he pushed himself to his feet one last time. His remaining arm raised its sword to face down his death. Podry glared. Not at the 'monster' that would take his life, but up at the viewing box where the masters sat and watched.

He was likely the only one in the pits looking up at that moment. It served him well. He caught a glimmer of movement through the glass dome above. And he saw it all as Mighty Leia's sky descended into the fighting pits.

The glass above shattered. Shards like Mighty Leia's stars were scattered in every direction. A lone man crashed his way into the fighting pits. As he fell, he thrust out his arms at the masters' viewing box. No contact was made, but even at a distance, the structure crumpled, outside turning to 'in'.

Podry imagined he could see and hear every moment of the masters' gruesome deaths. Their bodies were crushed instantly. His only regret was that their minds wouldn't have the chance to know fear. Down and down, the lone man descended, bringing vengeful, spiteful fury with him.

He landed on the Rancor's misshapen head. The whole moon seemed to shake with the impact, and the 'monster' was driven to the ground. A supernatural weight and Force backed the man's every action. The Rancor's body spasmed with a shining spear through its forehead and brain, but Podry thought the beast had to be dead already. Killed at first impact. Granted peace from its chains. Its star was with Mighty Leia now, Podry knew.

The pit's audience began to panic and scatter. The lone man paid them no mind. His dramatic entrance heralded the arrival of a whole raid. Quickly, coordinated forces began to corral and arrest the audience who remained. In bare few moments, the fighting pits were put down and overturned.

At her kin's back, Mighty Leia seemed to hold her breath. When she let it out — another lifting breeze in the depths of the pit — a sigh of relief came.

The lone man began to approach him. Tall, muscular, and striking with a stern-set face. He walked with the grace of a predator — dangerously — and Podry was left wary.

The pain from his missing arm finally started to flood his mind. Podry forced himself to remain tense and coiled. His sword was still raised. His teeth were bared. He stood firm. Ready to fight as he knew. But… all he wanted at that moment was to go to his brothers in the barracks.

Then, with only a few sentences, the lone, spiteful man turned Podry's life on its head, "Easy, kid. I'm not your enemy and you need medical treatment. Desperately."

"You could be!" Podry barked back. "Another master! More chains! I don't know you! You could be here to put down my brothers and me!"

"Never," The man said, his voice both serious and strangely soothing. "The chain has not yet been made that cannot be broken."

With just that, Podry instinctively relaxed. He knew. The man hadn't come to do him and his brothers any harm. He didn't share one of Mighty Leia's stars, but he fought with her darkness all the same. He was no brother-in-chains. Something else… A champion for Mighty Leia to call upon.

Things moved quickly after that. A blur, as adrenaline bled from his body in the rushing blood of his arm. Podry was treated well. Healers other than the medicine women stabilized him and promised him a new arm, better than his old one. For the first time in years, Podry left the pits. He and his brothers were taken away — to a place called 'Night City' — and granted a new home. They steadfastly refused to be separated. Podry resolved himself to look after the younger boys no matter how their suddenly new lives played out.

But… it seemed that there was nothing to worry about. They found the medicine women they knew waiting for them. Many hugs were given. Many tears were shed. Tya clutched Podry to her breast, and for once, he hugged her back with his remaining arm.

The attention they were given was almost alien. Warm beds and new clothes, food and drink, actual medical treatment, and everything else they thought to ask for. As promised, Podry was given a new arm, one of shining chrome that moved just as easily as his old.

Slowly, the truth began to set in. The sudden change their lives had taken was real. Mighty Leia had welcomed them into their proper places, and they hadn't even had to die to get there.

When Podry was 17 — actually living to turn it — he was… free. He, his brothers, and their 'mothers' had shed their chains and their stars had rejoined Mighty Leia's sky. That was the truth they were told. The truth as the rest of the galaxy understood it. But Podry and the other 'former' slaves knew differently.

Once chained, always chained, in a way. Even in freedom, the weight lingered. It likely would for the rest of their natural lives. They were finally freed, and paradoxically, could never be freed at the same time.

What did they know about being free? It was a hope. A distant dream. Something to never truly happen, not to them. Yet… it had.

Everyone in their new lives told them they were free. That a whole city was fighting for that right. That they could do and be anything they wanted. It was both their new truth and a terrible lie the Freedmen told to those they could never fully understand.

But as the hours drew on — for Podry was forced to count his 'free' time that way — the lie didn't change. He met others who actually understood. Other slaves who'd been freed. Most by the very spiteful hands that freed Podry and his brothers. Amongst those shared stars, Podry learned that though 'Night City and Atom' told the lie, they enforced it as if it was the truest truth in the galaxy.

He met more and more of Mighty Leia's kin, those whose stars had been returned to their proper places. 'Atom' came back around, and he brought kin with him. A Twi'lek woman named De'vi. One of the first slaves he'd freed. She knew the weight of chains, knew the stories, and she said that Atom was making his lie into true reality. He was fighting to make it so.

Despite himself, Podry began to believe. The boys of the fighting pits knew only two things in truth: chains and fighting. Podry wished to know more. For his brothers and 'mothers', for the memories of a life he'd never know, and for Mighty Leia's kin who hadn't yet had the chance to return their stars.

If Atom was fighting for his lie, Podry wished to help. He wasn't alone. His brothers wished for the same. But they were fighters and 'former' slaves and nothing more. 'What could they do?' Podry asked Mighty Leia from the unreal comfort of his new bed.

Mighty Leia came to him as a hug against his whole back. Warm. Understanding. Encouraging. If all he knew was fighting, should he not fight? Even for brothers and sisters that he'd never met?

He went to De'vi with his idea the next day. She told him he didn't have to. That he would never have to do anything he didn't want to do again. But Podry could see in her eyes that she understood. So she encouraged him as Mighty Leia had and helped him put all the pieces in place for him, his brothers, and any others who wished to join them.

When Podry was FREE, he founded a legion. An army to return the stars to the sky. A force to force Atom's lie into reality. A Free Legion to fight beside and behind Mighty Leia's champion. The Freest of Legions.

Even when Podry was FREE, he fought. He fought for brothers and sisters he'd never met. He fought for Mighty Leia's ancient vow. He fought for a lie he so desperately wished to be real.

Especially when Podry was FREE, he vowed to NEVER go hollow as his father had in the end.