8 chapter 8

Disclaimer: The only thing I own is the oc. Animes, video games, movies and books referenced in this fic are owned by their respective creators and companies.

AN: This is an alternative Universe. For Star Wars it is a mix of Disney Cannon and Legends Cannon. There will be things that may have been sped up, slowed down, removed completely in the timeline. I'll try to keep it as close as I can.

"Speech"

Thoughts/letters/emails

Chapter 8

The trip to Tatooine was longer than the trip to Nar Shaddaa had been. William spent his time customizing his load out. He had decided that just one blaster pistol was stupid and had taken one of the spare DC-17S pistols. He had created a new holster that held his slugthrower pistol and would hold one of his lightsabers when he finally built one that was located on his lower back. He had also added magnetic points on the upper back where he would strap his blaster rifle and vibrosword. 

JW was also customizing his weapons and had some maintenance work done to be in top shape for Tatooine. He had researched all available information that he could access about Krayt dragons and was not overly excited to fight one. Will had assured him they had a plan that would ensure their safety.

After all the maintenance had been completed William spent his time either in meditation or going through lightsaber forms. Will had discovered that with his continued use of meditation his mind not only became clearer but it had made him create a type of hyperthymesia. Hyperthymesia was a disorder William had researched after watching a tv show about a detective that could recall memories in vivid detail. It was like photographic memory but on steroids.

Using his newfound ability to recall all his life's memories, he started to review from his earliest memory on. This had inadvertently led him to a theory. He had reviewed his teen years and had just remembered reading the Harry Potter books. What stood out in the memory was that in Harry Potter they practiced a type of meditation called occlumency. The purpose of occlumency was to help organize the mind and to safeguard it from the intrusions of others. It also helped with the management of emotions. 

William decided to see if he could create a bastardized version of it combining his knowledge or meditation from Earth fiction, and the teachings of both Jedi and Sith. William spent the 3 days piecing together the new method of meditation. On the final day of Hyperspace travel he had come up with a rough foundation of occlumency. He had by no means mastered the technique but had gotten a good start on it. William's theory on the Force had been compiled after reviewing his memories of all the Star Wars media, other works of fiction and knowledge he had crammed in his head through flash learning. 

His Force wielder theory mirrored Buddhist theory; every sentient being has both dark and light. Positivity and negativity, life and death. Sith focused only on the dark, negative and death. Jedi focused only on light, positivity and life. The two weren't wrong in their beliefs but they weren't right either. Sentient beings can't just rely on their emotions, it would regress them from sentient beings to beasts of instinct and whim. Sentient beings can not deny emotions because it would regress them into apathetic objects. The biggest irony was that the greatest Jedi masters and Sith lords only became so by utilizing both sides of the Force. The locals didn't really notice this, but he did. 

Revan, arguably the strongest Force wielder in history, was both Jedi master and Sith Lord. Anakin Skywalker and Galen Marek were other examples. The Force was strongest when used as a whole, not when it was split. William had noticed that although he could be considered a Sith due to his mentality when using the Force he was still able to use light side techniques with no added difficulty. William's enlightenment had led him to renounce all connections to Sith and Jedi and embrace the force as a whole. The Force was like a sword, using the dark only would be like using only the blade; it could be done but would hurt you just as much as you used it. The light would be like using only the hilt, again it could be done but not as effective. When the Force was used as a whole is when you could use it properly.

William was shaken from his force trance when one of the astromechs had notified him they would be leaving hyperspace in a few minutes. William dressed himself in his armor and joined JW in the cockpit for their final approach. They landed in Mos Espa to gather some supplies and meet their Jawa contacts before flying out to the Dune Sea to attend the Jawa bazaar.

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William and JW disembarked the ship via landing ramp and set up their normal security protocols. The two decided to split up again to cover more ground. JW went to meet his contact and William went to buy a small bantha and some womp rats for their bait. It didn't take long for him to find a shady merchant to sell him the bantha and caged womp rats. Womp rats were bigger than he had expected, they were the size of a full grown labrador. He had the merchant deliver the young and sickly bantha and the womp rats to his ship. William walked around the market district and found a familiar droid shop. On a whim he decided to enter and see if there were any good finds in the shop.

He entered the shop and was greeted by a faulty protocol droid.

"Greetings customer, how m-m-may we help you today?"

William ginned in amusement under his helmet. "Just looking to browse the droid parts."

"The droid parts are located…" the droid never got to finish its statement before its head exploded.

William was shocked at the completely hilarious turn of events.

"Hey! What did you do to my droid, outlander?! You better have the peggats to pay for my droid or you will be in big trouble."

William recognized the little flying alien with the phallus shaped nose. Watto the Toydarian, former owner of the Skywalkers. He noticed how the flying rat had a look of greed on his face.

"I didn't do anything to your droid, it blew up as it was telling me where to find the droid parts section. I don't appreciate being accused of something I had no fault in.'' William replied coldly.

"You outlander's think because this is the outer rim you can do whatever you want. My droid was in perfect working order. If you don't have the peggats to cover the damage you caused, the Hutts will take peggats out of your hide, I think." Watto rebutted.

William knew that Watto was trying to play him, he had come in just to look for parts and maybe see the Toydarian in person but now he was pissed at the little rat's brazen attempt to blackmail him. Faster than Watto could react, William had taken the vibroblade on his back and closed the distance between the two. Watto saw as the armored man appeared before his face and quickly disappeared from his line of sight. He didn't get a chance to find him before he felt searing pain on his back and suddenly dropped to the ground in pain. "AAHH!"

William had charged straight at Watto before he ducked into the Toydarians blindspot. He planted his foot as a pivot and twirled around before using the centrifugal force to swing his blade and cut Watto's wings off.

Watto had lost both wings and was rolling on the ground screeching in pain. William stepped on Watto's back and held him in place. "You tried to scam the wrong person, Watto. If you had dealt with me fairly you would have been a few peggats richer but you decided to let your greed get the better of you, now you will die."

Watto was still whimpering in pain when he felt the armored boot grind on the stubs of his wings. He listened as the armored stranger spoke. 

"W-wait! Watto was wrong. He made a mistake and Watto promises to never scam anyone again. Watto promises not to tell anyone about this. Please just dont kill me!" Watto begged.

William had thought of sparing him but he didn't want to take the chance he would go tell the Hutts a made up story then he would have to dodge bounty hunter's. Dead men tell no tales, and all that.

William scoffed, "Like the word of scum like you is worth anything. Goodbye Watto, by the way, the Skywalker's send their regards." William then stabbed his blade into the back of the toydarian's head.

William whipped the blade about to remove the blood then wiped it on an oily rag that was on the counter. William took the body and hid it in the back. He decided to see if there were any usable parts. He found a few parts and left seven peggats on the counter. William walked out of the store nonchalantly. He browsed some other shops on the way back to the dock. 

He met JW near a cantina. The area they were in was suspiciously less populated which set off all of William's senses. JW noticed William tense and they both put their hands on their blasters. As they were passing an alley the Force screamed at William. William pushed JW out of the way of an incoming missile. 

The blast threw the two on opposite sides of the alley entrance. William was still shaking off the effects of the blast while JW had quickly recovered and was firing into the alley. William got his senses about him and pulled off the blaster rifle from his back. He ducked and activated his comms.

"Who's shooting at us JW?" William asked as he took cover behind a wall at the alley entrance.

"Three man assault team, Looks like Death Watch. Two on the roofs and one behind cover in alley way. Deploying smoke grenades will initiate cover fire in 3...2...1." JW replied.

JW threw the smoke grenades and started to fire into the alley. William was not idle. William ran across to reach JW. They were in a disadvantageous position and couldn't fight back. They decided to mitigate the high ground advantage by moving away from the killzone that had been prepared by their attackers and would find a more advantageous position. 

William and JW ran down the streets making their way through the slave district . They were in a running battle until they reached a dead end. William signalled JW to go stealth and climb up on top of the roof of the building they were currently hiding behind; he would act as bait and lead the attackers away so that they would face away from the building giving JW clear shots at their backs. JW acknowledged the order and disappeared.

William ran from behind cover to a building across the way where he could fire from cover in the direction they attackers would be pursuing from. William did not wait long as he saw three Death Watch commandos flying in his direction. He opened fire on them. He was able to hit one of their jetpacks and watched as the commando lost control before flying into a metal tower. The other two dropped down to roof level and tried to take firing positions on William but he had been able to get a few hits on them.

Most Death Watch members didn't have complete Beskar armor but a mixture of Beskar and Durasteel pieces. He had been lucky to have shot one in the leg that was only armored in durasteel. He heard him scream out in agony and watched him roll off of the roof. He didn't get the chance to take him out because his partner had opened fire on William's position. William took cover. When he heard the blaster rifle stop he tried to pop his head up for a shot but had to quickly duck because the commando started opening fire once again. The shots that were tearing Wiliam's cover apart quickly stopped after he heard JW take his shot. JW had shot the commando in the neck. It was one of the few places where the commandos weren't armored. 

William jumped up and ran from his cover to another wall closer to where the commandos were located. The Commando that flew into the metal tower had removed his damaged jetpack and helmet and was trying to get to his wounded partner. William had noticed him sneaking towards the wounded man and when he popped out of cover to try and pull his buddy into cover, William was able to lead his target and shot him in the head. 

The now headless body dropped like a bag of rocks a few feet shy from his buddy. The wounded commando tried to roll himself to cover but just as he rolled he bumped into the leg of the now visible JW. JW didn't give the commando time to speak and shot him through the T shaped visor. William took a breath and helped JW gather the corpses into an alley. William stayed with the corpses and had JW get a loading sled so that they could load the bodies and haul them to their ship. Once the bodies were loaded they quickly took the corpses to their ship.

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In the loading area of their ship they stripped the bodies and had the astromech droids go through comms and datapads. The droids found that the commandos had a ship nearby. JW and William put the now stripped corpses back on the sled and covered them up. They took the loaded sled to the dock where their ship was located with the codes provided by the droids they were able to access their beat up YG-4210.

William and JW stripped the ship of anything useful including weapons, nav computer log, ships logs and two swoop bikes. They loaded what they could on the sled and the rest they loaded on the bikes. William had been able to find out why they had been attacked; the Death Watch survivor had been able to escape Grakkus' clutches and let all his little Death Watch buddies know to be on the lookout for a guy in his unique armor. William was not enthused to find out that Death Watch was hunting him down but at least he had more chances to take out terrorists and loot their armor for any genuine beskar pieces. 

They had just managed to secure their loot when they were approached by a group of diverse mercs. After a standoff and some terse words they had been able to clear up any misunderstandings and had even been able to collect a bounty on the three. It seemed that the surviving Death Watch commando on Nar Shaddaa had been able to escape the army of mercs Grakkus the Hutt had put together after his vault had been broken into. His rage at the audacity of Death Watch to steal from him had prompted him to put a bounty on all Death Watch members, especially in Hutt space. 

William and JW had happily given the location of the bodies to the mercs and had even gifted their ship to Jabba the Hutt. They had made sure to send a message via Holo to Jabba's right hand man, Bib Fortuna explaining everything and had made sure to tell him that they were gifting the ship to Jabba just to make sure none of the mercs stole it for themselves. Bib had expressed his gratitude and they had been rewarded by the Hutts with preferential treatment in any Hutt ruled planet for helping them kill the Death Watch members.

JW and William had put in the coordinates to the Jawa Bazaar location in the Dune Sea and flew away from Mos Espa towards the harsh desert. It had only taken them 20 minutes to reach their destination. They landed the ship on the outskirts of the makeshift Jawa tent city. The bazaar was ringed by Jawa sand crawlers. JW and William loaded all the items they were going to use to trade with the Jawas onto the sled they had stolen. 

They had been able to rig the sled to the back of a swoop bike and they rode their new swoop bikes into the bazaar. JW searched for his contact while William guarded their items from the sneaky little munchkins.

JW returned with two Jawas and informed William they were allowed to use a tent to set up their wares where they would be able to trade for the items and information they were looking for. They rode the bikes to the designated spot and set their items under the tent. They would be trading most of the useless junk they had acquired in their recent escapades. They also had two 55 gallon oil drum like containers filled with water. Once word got out that they had parts, weapons and water to trade for crystals and current information on Krayt dragons the Jawa elders had decided to make an appearance. William did not speak Jawa so he let JW handle the transactions.

The Jawa elders had decided to pool all the crystals gathered by the Jawa clans and traded them for the water.  William had been able to gather nearly 30 pounds of assorted crystals. He could feel the force quite strongly in a few but he didn't see any that matched the description of the Ghostfire crystals. He would have to have his droid team back at base look them over in more detail. The Force had pulled him toward two small greyish metallic crystals. He knew the Force was telling him that those two would be used in his new lightsabers but he also felt that they would not be enough to complete his lightsabers.

William decided to pocket the two crystals and had the others put away in a crate that would be researched by his droids. William decided to take his new crystals and meditate with them as he left JW to trade the rest of their items to the Jawas. William sat in a lotus position away from the customers in the front and held the two crystals as he fell into a force trance. He felt his Force powers resonate with the crystals creating a sort of feedback loop. The Force would be gathered from his surroundings and would then trickle into the crystals in his hand where they would infuse into the crystals which would then flow back into him. It became a never ending Force loop.

William finally came out of his trance and noticed that most of the items they had brought to trade were gone and he noticed a crate full of parts had almost filled up. He opened his hands and realized that his crystals were no longer a murky metallic color but clear with a swirling silver formation in the center. He placed the crystals in one of his belt pouches and walked to JW.

"We have received the information you wanted, there is a canyon not far from here The Jawas have had to avoid due to an adolescent Krayt dragon. I suggest we rest and go hunting tomorrow." JW stated.

William nodded his agreement and they packed up the rest of their belongings and mounted their bikes to spend the night on the ship. JW said goodbye to his Jawa contacts and they departed. They arrived back on the ship and the astromechs flew them a few kilometers from the area where the Krayt dragon made his home. William ate a meal and used the fresher. He returned to his room to meditate on the following day's operation.

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JW and William woke up early and tied the sickly bantha to one of the bikes while the other pulled the sled with the womp rats and their other supplies. JW located the entrance to a cave and they got off their bikes and prepared for their plan. William had decided to use Din Djarin's method to kill the dragon. They rigged the sickly bantha with a half a crate worth of thermal detonators set up on a remote trigger. 

They walked the bantha a few meters in front of the cave and set up a metal stake deep into the ground. They tied up the bantha and left it some food to chew on. They killed the womp rats. And drained the blood on the bantha which made it upset but William had been able to use the Force to calm it. They threw the womp rat carcasses near the cave entrance and hauled ass back to the rock formation overlooking the cave entrance. 

William turned to JW, "Now we wait." JW had changed out the parts on the DC-15M into the sniper rifle configuration and would only target eyes and the inside of the mouth. William had configured his rifle to the grenade launcher settings. They both waited for the Krayt dragon. After an hour, William was starting to lose hope until he heard a loud growl and heard shuffling sounds. They waited in silence and prepared the detonator. William felt like they would be in for a heck of a fight.

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William caught a glimpse of the dragon and realized once again that seeing things on a tv screen just didn't compare to the real thing. It was like watching a dinosaur in real life. The Krayt dragon was about 33 meters in length according to JW. William equated that to the size of a blue whale or three school busses end to end. It was an unreal spectacle. William lost confidence in his plan upon seeing the creature. He was a healthy distance from the creature and he could smell it and it smelled horrible but nothing compared to the feeling in the Force that the creature put out. It was a gut sinking feeling he had only experienced once before when he had been in a car crash. 

William shook his doubts off and centered himself in the Force. He had his thumb on the detonator remote and was just waiting for the creature to take the bait. The bantha was now kicking at the ground and pulling hard on the restraint. Its desperate struggle to run away from the predator caused him a weird mixture of emotions. It made him feel guilty for the cruelty he was putting the beast through but at the same time he was feeding on it's fear. He was savoring its fear and hopelessness. He used the feelings and thoughts and accepted them both, he wouldn't run away from the guilt or revel in the fear he was enjoying. He was a sentient being with both compassion and cruelty and he accepted both. He felt the Force respond to his resolve and strengthen him.

The dragon had been slowly approaching the bantha and seemed to be toying with it. It was obviously more intelligent than most gave them credit for. It slowly approached the bantha until it opened its maw and roared at the poor creature. The sickly bantha couldn't handle the fright and suddenly collapsed. William was shocked by the turn of events. He would have laughed if his life had not depended on him to maintain his cool. 

The bantha had reminded him of the fainting goats from back home. The dragon on the other hand seemed to revel in having killed the creature without having touched it. Most of its body was still submerged under the desert sands but its head sniffed at the now dead animal and then proceeded to take a large bite.

That had been the moment that William had been waiting for. As soon as the creature took the first bite and swallowed the bantha's head whole. It went in for a second bite and bit down and started to shake it's head to rip the bantha's upper body. William didn't give it a chance. William detonated the thermal detonators it had in its bloody maw. The explosion was bigger than he had anticipated and the shock wave blew gusts of wind and sand in every direction. William had taken cover once he had depressed the button and had been glad he did.

 After the wind and sand had died down, he and JW looked over the rocky cover and saw that the dragon was missing its lower jaw and most of its neck but was still writhing in death throes. William and JW looked at each other and decided to wait for it to stop moving then decided to wait another half hour before they moved from their hiding spot. They walked over to the dragon carcass and shot it in the soft palate and eyeballs just to make sure. William looked to JW and decided to teach him one of Earth's greatest inventions, the Fist bump. After taking a few pictures for their records they got to digging out its body.

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