STAR WARS: Brotherhood

Training on Dathomir

The planet of Dathomir was a harsh place and it's inhabitants have adapted. Whether that was the Bane-Back Spiders, arachnids with eight powerful legs and a strong venom that would kill a Wookiee in a matter of days or the fearsome and giant beasts known as the Rancor, a bipedal monster covered in thick armour and strong muscles.

However Raiden had discovered over the last two years that none were as harsh or as savage as the Zabraks. They were animalistic by nature and they were lead by their primal instincts of 'the weak follow the strong' and so the largest, strongest and fastest Zabrak male would lead their tribe on the rocky Dathomir mountains. These Zabrak males were known as the Night-Brothers of Dathomir.

While the Night-Brothers lived in their tribes, the females, known as the Night-Sisters, lived in the vast swamp lands. The Night-Brothers were primal beings but the Night-Sisters were cunning and none were as conniving and powerful in the Dothomirian Magik as Mother Talzin.

It was the Night-Mother that oversaw the training of her young Son. She insured he lived through a series of rituals she put him through. With the Waters of Life she channeled the Spirit Ichor through his body increasing his power in the force as well as his raw strength. After his rituals were complete his entire body, except his face, were covered in the Dathomirian tattoos. But these weren't only tattoos they were shackles. And so as his training began Raiden Skywalker was no more and born anew as Omen, son of Talzin.

Raidens training was always brutal but what he was currently going through was the harshest yet. He held a staff of twisted, warped black wood the length of a Lightsaber Staff while facing three Night-Brothers. The largest Night-Brother held a large wooden club, the top being ringed with metal to cause the most pain. The second Night-Brother held two short wooden scythes and the third held a whip and had two daggers on his belt.

Mother Talzin looked down on her son, who had his chest bare and shackles around his wrists that would prevent his from using the force, as he faced the three opponents. He had been fighting for dozens of minutes now and was covered in cuts and bruises, no different from any other training session.

Raiden pushed the head of his staff into the stomach of the first Night-Brother causing him to stagger. He raised his staff above his head ready to strike his opponent when it was caught with the whip stopping it. It took Raiden a moment to unbind his staff but a moment was all the Night-Brothers needed as he was quickly attacked by two scythes. He blocked them but his guard was forced downward by the hooked blades and the club was slammed into his side sending him to the floor.

His black staff tumbled from his grasp as he fell to his hands and knees. Raiden felt a searing pain in his ribs but it fell to the back of his mind as he felt the burning gaze of the Night-Mother. He didn't meet her eyes but he knew that they would be filled with disappointment, who was she to be disappointed in him. He was a Jedi, raised within the walls of the Temple by some of the greatest people in the galaxy yet here he was, on a planet he hated, beaten by people he hated, being looked down upon in disappointment by a woman who he HATED!

All his childhood he was taught that rage and fury was the tools of the Sith and that as a Jedi he must never succumb to his baser instincts but he always struggled. In the temple however he had people to care for him, Masters such as Yoda and Qui-Gon, and even Dooku to a lesser extent, who he could go to when he felt emotions such as these. The one he was closest to was Luminara. She was always there for him when he had any problems, for some reason she just understood him, always able to bring him back to the light. But it had been a long time since he had anyone to bring him back to the light on this Force forsaken planet and so he struggled to keep his rage under control.

The woman responsible for Luminara's death, the Witch Talzin, looked at him in disappointment. And the worst part was that it hurt. Raiden was only five when he was taken, still young and craving the love of a mother in this brutal loveless planet. It was a weakness in his mind and emotions that Mother Talzin was quick to exploit for her own gain. So after exposing him to the most brutal form of physical training she would hold him close and heal his wounds, some of which she inflicted herself, and whispering sweet things in his ears, manipulating him to be the perfect pawn.