The dropship cut through Mandalore's cloud-wrapped sky like a blade. Within, Jango Fett stood silent, armor scorched, cape torn from the fire of Geonosis. His duel with Obi-Wan Kenobi had shaken him more than he let on—not because he lost, but because of what he'd seen: the Republic's army, thousands of clones, all grown from his blood.
He had agreed to be the template. He had not agreed to be a pawn.
The doors hissed open to the spartan landing platform of Sundari. There was no ceremony. Only silence, broken by the arrival of armored figures—Mandalorians unlike those Jango had left behind.
They wore new armor, deeper, darker, forged in the crucibles of the reborn foundries beneath Kalevala. Their movements were sharp, unified. At their head stood a cloaked figure—tall, composed, expression hidden beneath a polished obsidian helm.
"You return with war behind you," the figure said. "And ahead of you."
Jango didn't ask names. "I want to speak to him."
"He already knows you're here."
Beneath Sundari, in the reinforced chambers of the Eclipse Citadel, Serion watched Jango's approach on a shifting holomap. Next to him, Taliya observed without speaking. Behind them, the war machine stirred.
The Oblivion fleet had already launched two quiet assaults against Republic patrols—ambushes in the Outer Rim that left only twisted hulls and unanswered black box screams. Rumors called it a Separatist sub-fleet. The truth was darker.
Serion turned from the screen. "The Republic bleeds. Mandalore will not stitch its wounds."
In the Republic Senate, chaos reigned.
Queen Padmé Amidala stood frozen, the news ringing in her ears: Mandalore had officially withdrawn from the Republic. No declaration of war. No ultimatums. Just a message of secession, signed by multiple clans and sealed by the newly reformed Mandalorian High Council.
A meeting was arranged. An old friend summoned.
Satine Kryze, Duchess of Mandalore, stood in the shadows of her own planet. She had resisted the tide Serion ushered in—but she had lost. Now imprisoned within her own palace, guarded by Mandalorians she once led, she met Padmé in secret through a secure holochannel.
"They used fear," Satine said. "They fed on the chaos of war and offered strength. The clans rallied. The pacifists were overrun. And the Republic? It watched."
Padmé's hands trembled. "Why didn't anyone stop them?"
"Because your Republic is not built to stop shadows."
Jango knelt before Serion in a chamber lined with flickering blue flames and beskar-carved glyphs. The two men did not speak for a long time.
"I saw the clones," Jango said at last. "Your game's deeper than I thought."
"I never lied to you," Serion replied. "The Kaminoans paid you. The Republic used you. But Mandalore... needs you."
"And you need soldiers."
"I need symbols."
Serion turned, revealing the plans displayed behind him—schematics of new armor, hybridized from Spartan principles and Mandalorian design. MJOLNIR Mark V refitted for beskar. Amplified by genetic augmentations already underway.
"They will be called the Kyr'amar," Serion said. "The Dead Blades."
"They'll need a leader."
"You're not done yet, Jango."
The Jedi Temple echoed with arguments.
Master Windu pressed for action. Ki-Adi-Mundi warned against drawing conclusions. Yoda sat in silence. Whispers grew: about Serion, about the clones, about the force shifting in unnatural ways.
"The war has begun," Windu said. "But we are already fractured."
Obi-Wan stood quietly near the edge of the chamber. He had seen too much. Kamino. Geonosis. And now this—the Jedi Order losing itself in debate as the galaxy burned.
Anakin sat outside the Council chamber, waiting.
In the dark corridors beneath Coruscant, Darth Sidious moved his pieces.
With each Oblivion assault, the Senate grew more fearful. Each death, each shattered Republic vessel, turned nervous murmurs into desperate cries.
Chancellor Palpatine—cloaked in calm—presented a solution: emergency powers. More clones. New weapons. A war economy.
They voted in his favor with trembling hands.
But as he stared into the skyline of Coruscant, even he felt it: a presence moving beyond his grasp. Serion. A force he had not yet fully seen. And perhaps... something else.
Something watching both of them.
Across the stars, Serion stood before a newly lit forge.
Taliya, now fully armored, issued her first command: initiate Phase Two. Test the Kyr'amar in live battlefield conditions. Strike a Separatist installation, not for conquest—but message.
The gene-edited warriors emerged like reapers, faster, stronger, bonded by mental relay and Spartan discipline. They were terrifying.
But Serion's eyes were elsewhere—toward the void beyond the Outer Rim.
In his dreams, he saw the galaxy cracking. He saw ships of black coral. Creatures immune to the Force. Worlds falling in silence.
He had built Mandalore not for this war. But for the next.
And it was coming.