By Molten Light
Posted on Sat Jan 3rd, 2026 @ 9:43pm by Kalen "Rex" Vickers & Thane & Mentis
4,646 words; about a 23 minute read
Chapter:
Chapter VIII: Broken Chains
Location: Mensix Facility, Mustafar
Timeline: Days after Bespin
Mustafar was a world that lay beneath a perpetual bruise of ash and ember, its horizon a jagged sawline of black basalt and broken industrial silhouettes.
Rivers of lava cut through the wasteland like exposed arteries, slow and inexorable, painting the underside of the clouds in sick, molten orange. Even within the Mensix Facility, which was built to endure heat, corrosion and the long attrition of volcanic storms, everything carried the faint taste of cinder. Metal sweated and stone radiated. Airfilters rasped, endlessly trying to make something breathable out of a planet that did not care whether anything lived.
The facility itself was an old scar in the rock; it was half-mining complex, half-fortress, refitted in recent months into something quieter and far more dangerous than its original owners had intended. The lower levels still held the bones of heavy industry, like ore cutters, mag-rails, inactive smelters, while the upper sanctums had been reshaped into private chambers, meeting vaults, and secure bays where the Red Raptor could land unseen by most eyes that mattered.
And beyond the transparisteel of the highest observation gallery, the lava fields rolled outward in an endless, shifting light.
Thane stood there for a moment, alone, as if listening to the world.
He had not bothered with ceremony today. No mask. No dramatics. Only his dark grey robes leftover from his time as Jedi, a cloak that drank what little light made it through the ash, and the stillness of a man who had already decided what would happen next. The hot glare from below caught the hard edges of his face and left his eyes cold by contrast - now ever-gold, watchful, unreadable.
In his hand, half concealed by his sleeve, sat a small, unassuming thing: a lightsaber crystal - blue, old, clean. It was out of place here, like a memory that refused to die. He had turned it over once, not sentimentally, but as if weighing its worth in a different kind of currency than faith, only the occasional rogue thought of his first failed apprentice plaguing his mind.
Somewhere inside the facility, in terms of failed students, Mentis was keeping to himself.
That was not unusual. The man had always worn isolation like armour too proud to beg for comfort, too scarred or scared to accept it, too newly-freed to understand what freedom actually demanded. But there was a difference now. A quiet absence at his hip. An emptiness that was not merely practical, but personal.
Bespin had taken the saber from him.
Not broken in battle with 'honour'. Not lost to some noble sacrifice. Simply… crushed. Stamped into fragments and scattered like something unworthy of being remembered. The Baron had done it with the casual finality of a man erasing an inconvenience.
Thane had watched the aftermath in Mentis’ posture ever since.
He turned from the window and began to move.
The Mensix corridors swallowed him in their dim light: durasteel ribs, basalt reinforcements, old pipes that hissed with heat exchange. The sound of his boots was subdued, as if the facility itself recognised him. Servitor droids, what few her accepted there, kept their distance. Security lights tracked his passage and then steadied.
He did not need to ask where Mentis was.
He could feel the shape of the man’s presence. It was tense, restless, held together by will and resentment. It drew him toward a quieter sector: a maintenance access that had once overlooked the primary lava trench, now reinforced into a narrow balcony of metal grating and black railings, exposed to the planet’s breath. The air here was warmer, sharper. You could taste sulphur. You could hear the lava, not as a roar, but as a constant, slow, living churn.
Mentis was out there. Not for solitude’s sake, but because the world outside gave him something honest to stare at, Thane assumed. There was endless heat, endless ruin, and no pretence of peace. The kind of landscape that did not lie about what it was.
Thane approached without hurry and did not announce himself. He did not soften his steps. If Mentis had learned anything at all since Nar Shaddaa, he would have felt him coming. The Force shifted around Thane’s presence like metal around a magnet, now - subtle and inevitable.
He stopped a few paces back, the lava’s glow cutting a long shadow from both of them across the grated floor.
The blue crystal sat in his palm, unseen and unoffered.
Out on the maintenance balcony, the heat from the lave trench below pressed against Mentis' skin with unrelenting pressure. His body still ached all over from being thrown around in the Administrator's Palace on Cloud City but his jaw and face had suffered the most, with many of the facial markings around his chin and neck now obscured by dark bruises. They stung greatly as the heat radiated into him but he bore it as an anchor, focussing him and helping him to ignore the absence at his hip.
Many times in the last few days had his hand drifted to where his saber hilt should have been, only to find no familiar ribbon to caress. It has been one of the only objects in this galaxy that had been truly his and now it was gone: not taken or won, but simply destroyed before him. He would have been destroyed there too, just as easily were it not for Rex.
A sizzling pop erupted from the surface of the lava stream as a pocket of trapped gas reached the surface and Mentis' muscles tightened in a flinch response, leading him to wince in pain. While he sought to control his fear, the events on Bespin had concerned him. When he had left Axion, it was because of his own action: he struck Trey down, he had hunted down the Raptor Crew. But now, he was relying on others to save him. Unarmed and weak: in the cult, the vultures would now be circling.
But what unsettled him most was the flicker of relief, even joy, he’d felt when Rex had appeared with the Raptor and cut the Baron down. That moment of safety, of being saved, had slipped into him too easily. It frightened him. He had spent years teaching himself that strength meant standing apart from others around him, that you should never depend on anyone but your own strength to survive and win Axion's favour. The only person he had ever allowed himself to lean on was the master himself and that had nearly destroyed him. Rex was nothing like Axion and yet the feeling was the same shape and that was what made it dangerous.
The lava hissed again below, this time more gently: a slow exhale of the planet itself. Mentis let the sound fill the silence inside him, trying to decide whether it soothed him or mocked him.
He didn’t hear Thane’s footsteps yet, but he felt the shift in the air, the subtle tightening of the Force around a presence that still left him somewhat unsettled. It made the emptiness at his hip feel even sharper.
He straightened, but didn’t turn. Not yet.
Thane stopped beside him, close enough that the heat and the Force braided together between them. He did not look out at the lava at first. His attention was on Mentis - not appraising, not judging, but measuring something quieter.
“I imagine I’m difficult for you to stand beside now,” he said at last, voice low, unforced, carried cleanly over the hiss and churn below. There was no apology in it, and no challenge. Only observation. “The dark side doesn’t announce itself the way it once did, I feel, in prior years, facing down petty despots as a Jedi, or raging dark marauders. It settles. It presses..." There was a quiet moment where the Caanan pressed his eyes shut, seeming to be contemplating their surroundings or reaching out with the Force, before he then continued. "You feel it before you understand why - and you have understood that better than me. Until recently, perhaps.”
The Human rested his forearms lightly on the railing, gaze finally lifting to the molten expanse beyond the balcony. The gold in his eyes caught the lava’s reflection and held it, steady and unblinking. Whatever he had once done to dull or disguise that presence, especially before events on Öetrago, he was no longer doing it. The Force moved around him with a dense, assured gravity - not flaring, not theatrical, but unmistakably altered from their earliest encounters.
His hand shifted then, just enough for whatever was held in his grip to glint faintly in the low light.
Mentis’ eyes were drawn to the faint glint but he quickly looked away like a guilty child peeking behind the magician’s curtain.
“The dark side I knew was different…” the former cultist carefully continued the thought, “It’s like an ocean of quiet currents that cause tension when they interact. Those like the Jedi were easy to read, like noisy Gooberfish making waves on the surface, while Axion was like an echo from the deep: silent when he desired but impossible to ignore when he called.”
He coughed and gently massaged his sore neck before continuing:
“To strain the metaphor somewhat, I’m not quite a fish out of water, but things have certainly been more clouded since I arrived with you all. Sometimes good, sometimes bad. You’re right to say it is not easy to understand what essence of the dark side you embody, but you impose a measure of reason and order. I may not know where I stand with you, but I do trust that you would not act without reason. That is enough for me to continue fighting beside you.”
Thane watched the lava for a few seconds longer, as if listening for a rhythm beneath its churn, then inclined his head a fraction in acknowledgement. Mentis’ words had weight because they were measured, and Thane seemingly respected that more than reassurance offered too quickly.
“You stand where you should,” he said quietly. “Which is rarely comfortable.” His gaze remained outward, but his attention was unmistakably on Mentis now. “You failed on Bespin. So did Bomoor. So did we all. The difference is not that you were unworthy, which is a false metric - it is that the Baron was prepared for a kind of violence none of us had yet named... I suppose Axion breeds that sort of preparation. He teaches his followers how to endure long enough to serve him as best as possible.”
Having almost spat the last words, he straightened slightly, forearms lifting from the rail. He waited a few moments before speaking again. “You are not diminished because you were overmatched - but you will be diminished only if you decide that moment defines you, like all of your time under his thumb.” His tone sharpened. “And I will not have you drifting into superstition about dependence. You were not saved. You were extracted. There is a difference.”
The object in his hand caught the light again as his fingers loosened.
“But... your strength,” Thane continued, his tone actually softening a fraction, “has never been belief, despite where you came to us from. It has never been surrender to an idea of power. It is your discipline of body and intent.” He finally turned, meeting Mentis’ mismatched eyes fully now. “You read opponents and you adapt. You survive long enough to learn, and always have done." The Sith's ethereal golden eyes examined the pale man before him. "Bomoor told me of the pits, and your sessions scouring your mind, and how you've sought to challenge and understand it. Axion values none of that. Which is why, I believe, you frighten him more than you realise.”
He opened his palm. A deep-blue crystal rested there, plain and unadorned, with jagged edges not dulled by time. No ceremony. No invocation. Just an object, offered with deliberate care.
“This was my first,” Thane said. “Jedi issue. Naturally-grown. It has long served its purpose with me.” A brief flicker passed through his expression - something between sentiment and honesty. “It has not sat in my lightsaber for years, but I kept it for....”
The words tailed off as he held the crystal out between them, steady. “Crystals are scarce,” Thane then corrected course. “Real ones more so. Synthethics will function, of course - but not my way, at least. This one came to me from my Jedi master's closest friend, who in turn received it from a battlemaster many decades ago. It is right that it passes to another warrior of principle.”
His voice now lowered, but stripped of anything resembling command. The unfamiliar softness remained. “You are an ally in this, Mentis. And a student of Bomoor, whether you name yourself as such or not. I will not leave you unarmed - nor allow you to mistake humility for helplessness.” The lava hissed below them, a slow, patient sound, punctuating the moment. “When you are ready,” Thane said, holding the crystal there without pressing it closer, “build again. Stronger. More honestly - for who you want to be; for who you are now.”
The Human's gesture resonated with Mentis in deep and meaningful way. While he had been granted accolades within the cult, this simple gesture man-to-man felt more impactful than any ceremony or induction he had ever been the recipient of. He stared at the small, blue-hued crystal in the prosthetic-infused hand before him, reflecting golden glints from the fiery surroundings much like Thane's eyes once did when Mentis' first met him before the gold set in fully.
"That is..." the Rattataki began, his hand flittering in the air, "I mean to say, I never expected to receive such an honour from you."
He looked at Thane and nodded hastily before stooping down; not so low that he was kneeling but knees bent in clear deference.
"I swear to you, that in accepting this crystal, I will wield it with true purpose: I will forge a weapon not of Axion's will but of my own, building on the legacy this crystal holds as the spirit of a warrior and of a knight."
He felt a tightness in his chest as he spoke, as he knew he meant every word he uttered. It was not a pressure born of fear, but one of excitement. Where, moments ago, he had thought that these new ties would bind him once more, here was the most hardened of this crew offering him a new freedom that not even Bomoor had offered.
Thane’s gaze held on Mentis as the man dipped and for a heartbeat the hard line of his mouth eased, as though something in him had been permitted to unclench. The offer had not been made for gratitude, but Mentis’ instinct to treat it as an oath, rather than a gift, clearly landed where it was meant to.
“That will do,” Thane said quietly, and there was less steel in it than there had been a minute before. His eyes tracked the crystal as Mentis accepted it. The expression was not possessive, but perhaps sentimental and attentive, like a craftsman watching a tool passed into the right hands. “Do not make it about legacy,” he added, as if correcting a fault in the phrasing more than the feeling. “Make it about function. About what you can do with it when it matters.”
He might have said more. The moment hung, warm with the lava’s breath, and the Force around them had settled into something almost… steady. Thane’s hand withdrew back into his sleeve, and he angled his body toward Mentis as though to continue, his expression hovering near something resembling approval.
Then, his attention shifted, albeit not dramatically.not with a snap of the head or a flare of presence, but with just a glance aside, the slightest tilt of his chin as if the air behind them had changed density. His senses had reached past the metal grating and heat and ash, past the open wound of the lava trench, and found something familiar lingering close, hesitating at the mouth of the access corridor like someone deciding whether to interrupt a sermon. Mentis' senses caught up a moment later.
Thane’s features then closed again, the softness retreating as though it had never been there.
“I have other matters to attend to,” he said, voice returning to that controlled, stern register he wore like armour.
He inclined his head once to Mentis in acknowledgement and stepped back from the railing. He turned and moved toward the corridor without hurry, the hem of his robe catching the warm updrafts.
At the threshold, Rex drifted into view properly, half in shadow and half in the dull glow of the corridor strips, posture casual in a way that tried too hard to look like it was not. Thane did not stop for him. He gave only the smallest nod as he passed, eyes flicking over the smuggler with cool appraisal, and then he was gone into the Mensix corridors, the weight of his presence withdrawing like a tide.
Rex watched him go, lips pursed, and then let out a low whistle that was all the commentary he could safely risk.
“Well,” he said under his breath, stepping out onto the balcony proper and angling himself beside Mentis as if they hqd been there together all along. He kept his eyes on the lava for a second, like it was easier than looking at the bruises on Mentis’ face. “Mr Dark-and-Broody’s in a mood.”
He glanced sidelong at Mentis, attempting a grin that did not quite find its way onto his face. “He tell you off, or was that the… inspirational teacher bit?” A pause, then, with a faint lift of his brows: “’Cause if that was him being nice, I’m starting to understand why Jedi don’t have families.”
Mentis stared at his closed palm, feeling the crystal within it for a moment longer before straightening up.
"I wouldn't know much about families, Rex," the Rattataki looked confidently at the smuggler, even managing a slight curl of his mouth into a budding smile, "But, if you must know, he actually was being quite nice."
He brought his hand up and revealed the crystal to Rex.
"Look at this; this was his old Jedi crystal," he turned it in his hand, admiring it again himself, perhaps more so than Rex was, "It's an honest-to-the-Force natural lightsaber crystal. Grown, not made."
Rex’s eyes flicked to the crystal and, for a second, he looked as though he was about to say something glib - something that would keep him safely on the surface of the moment. Instead, he simply stared at it, mouth tightening, as if his mind had filed it under 'things I do not touch without a glove' .
“Huh,” he managed, finally, the sound half a laugh and half a breath. “That’s… that’s a whole lotta meaning for something that fits in your palm.” He tipped his head toward Mentis, squinting as if comparing him to the man who had been brooding out here minutes ago. “And would you look at you, eh? You’ve actually perked up, Mantis. Didn’t think I’d see that on Mustafar.”
He made a vague motion with his hand, as though brushing invisible dust out of the air between them. “Not that I’m knocking the venue,” he added quickly, his voice settling into that practical register he slipped into when feelings crept too close. “If it gets you back on your feet and back in the fight, I’ll take it. And, you know…” His lips twitched. “A free crystal from Master Miser is definitely cheaper than trying to source one. Last time the Hutts tried shuffling 'em, the prices made me want to swallow my own blaster.”
He fell quiet after that, his gaze drifting past the railing to the slow, relentless churn of the lava trench below. The heat did not seem to bother Rex - he was not sweating nor flushed - but there was a tightness in his shoulders that had not been there when he first stepped out. His fingers tapped once against the metal rail, stopped, then started again, like an argument he could not quite win with himself.
“Anyway,” Rex said, a little too casually, his eyes still on the molten light. “I didn’t come out here to admire jewellery.” He glanced back at Mentis, and the grin tried to return, but it did not quite make it. “Just wanted to check you were still you. Or, uhh, as close to it as you ever get.”
His attention wandered again, as if the facility behind them had developed teeth. The mouth of the corridor, the dim lights, the way the air tasted wrong even through filters - all of it held him in a kind of restless discomfort he was not naming.
“Something about this place... The heat, rocks... The misery,” the Human said at last, and then stopped himself, swallowing the rest of the thought before it could become a confession. His jaw worked once, as though chewing on something bitter. “Doesn’t matter.” Another beat. He nodded toward Mentis’ hand, toward the crystal. “Just keep hold of that. Get that new saber of yours built. Fight the, uhh, good fight.”
Mentis closed his hand around the crystal again and turned his focus towards the Human. The smuggler was doing an unusually poor effort of concealing his own unhappiness and, if he wished to spare Mentis from it, he was doing an even worse job at that. His smile was artificial, reinforced by gritted teeth that looked particularly yellow in the Mustafarian light and he kept looking this way and that. Not to mention his aura in the Force.
"You know," Mentis began carefully, gently pocketing the crystal as he moved over to lean on the railing alongside Rex, "Force users are pretty good at picking up on emotions. Even the gloomy dark ones like me and Master Miser."
Of course, he neglected to mention that sensing emotions and talking about emotions were two entirely different beasts.
"Anything you, you know, want to talk about," he added, attempting a weak smile of his own, "I'll even listen to one of your stories again, if that's what you want."
Rex’s fingers tightened on the rail, the tapping stopping altogether.
“Yeah,” he said, after a moment that had gone on just a fraction too long. His eyes stayed on the lava, but his attention was no longer there. “Yeah, I do. I just got a message. Before I came looking for you.”
He reached up and rubbed at the back of his neck, an unconscious gesture, like he was trying to scrub something off his skin rather than soothe a muscle. Small beads of sweat had still formed, courtesy of the ambience. “It was Brisck,” he then explained, finally turning his head enough to glance at Mentis. “He was in the Marines with me, years back. I've mentioned it a little, but he and I were the only survivors of an op that went to fodder - we hightailed it on a Company freighter, listed KIA, and setup with the Cartel together - he knew some guys. But, he went his way and I went mine, in the end. Didn't really keep up with each other. Seemed safer that way... 'though he never really got over it, y'know?”
Rex exhaled through his nose, slow and controlled. “Message was brief. Garbled. But he mentioned Mos Entha,” he said. “Said something’s wrong. Real wrong. Then it cut. For him to even reach out...” His mouth twisted, not quite into a smile. His gaze flicked back toward the corridor Thane had vanished down, then returned to Mentis. The decision had already been made in his mind, clearly, but not without a healthy portion of fear and reticence. “Mos Entha's my home - where my old man had his shop. I ain't stepped foot there since my old man died and not wanted to... but, I can't ignore my old pal asking for help.”
With an awkward look to Mentis, Rex tried flashing a pearly-white grin. “Thane and Bomoor are... well... and Reave would rather fight a rancor in a cupboard than set foot on Tatooine.” A beat. “Which, uhh... leaves you.”
Rex nodded once, as if sealing it. “I figured I’d check you were still upright before I suggested you come with. Y'know, on account of your massive debt to me, anyway.” He counted two fingers. “By my reckonin', it's once for the ship, and once for Bespin.” His familiar, lopsided calm was back on show. “So,” Rex said, tone light but eyes intent, “it's a quick trip to Tatooine. Commercial flight, fake names, no heroics (obviously). Just us, a rented speeder, and a sandcrawler's worth of childhood trauma to revisit.”
Mentis stared at the man for a moment, shocked at the sudden outpouring and conflicted on how he had felt about it. Something from his past was offended that he would assume so readily that Mentis would risk his own neck for a personal mission, but a much larger part of himself wanted to jump at the opportunity to help the man who had been rather quickly becoming quite meaningful to the pale Force user. He felt his hand drifting to the empty spot at his side once more, worried at his growing attachment to these people, but particularly Rex.
His hand held at his side for a moment before he clenched his fist determinately.
"If this will go some way to making us square," Mentis cocked his head, deciding to use his supposed debt as a deflection from addressing his concerns, "Then I think I can oblige you on this one, so long as my lack of lightsaber doesn't count against me."
He frowned slightly, adding: "It is important to confront our pasts, I think. If I can help you confront yours, then perhaps mine will be a little easier too."
Rex shook his head as Mentis spoke, still grinning. "Hey, don’t sell yourself short, my good man," he said, lifting a hand in mock appraisal. "You might be worth a whole lot less without the glowstick, sure - but I’ll still take the pale magician who can make heads pop from twenty paces. That trick alone saves on blaster packs." He paused for a second, a faux-serious expression accosting his face. "You can do that, right?"
Mentis blinked once, slowly, as if weighing whether Rex genuinely expected an answer.
“I can,” he said dryly, “Though that little trick costs extra.”
He let that hang for a moment, then added with a faint sideways glance, “Which reminds me… if we’re talking about what I supposedly owe you, we should probably review the full list of services rendered.”
A subtle smirk tugged at his mouth, “I’m fairly certain a few past… escapades should’ve earned me a discount. I remember a certain handmaiden caper you roped me into.”
Rex barked a short laugh and shook his head at once, as if cutting the thought off before it could grow legs.
"No," he said, then faltered, eyes narrowing as the memory caught. "No. That business on Naboo doesn’t… doesn’t count." He waved a hand dismissively, already retreating from it, and then pushed off the rail and straightened, the humour settling back into something steadier. "Anyway - get some rest, Mantis." That lopsided grin again. "Sand. Suns. Regret. You’ll love it."
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