THE PATH OF REVAN
Part V: The Mask
No one knew who she was before she put on the mask.
Before then, she was simply Bel. Growing up on her homeworld was difficult yet peaceful. Her people had never known strife or conflict; they simply survived, and they were good at that. They were happy. She was happy.
But then the monsters came.
They weren’t quite machines, but also weren’t quite people. They were a mix of both, mostly in ways that would frighten even the strongest of spirits. Their ghostly blue faces bore no expression, their black eyes carrying no souls. They showed no remorse as they burned their homes. Ransacked their village. Killed their parents.
She and her brother were among the view that survived, and those that did were taken captive to be sold into slavery. She did not know what they were going to do them. She did not want to know. She would have rather they killed her than subject her to this fate.
Fortunately, she would never have to find out. For not long after being brought back to the monsters’ home, her saviors came.
Warriors clad in mighty armor descended from the heavens, riding mechanical chariots that were the thing of dreams. They swung their battle axes, chopping the monsters to pieces. One of them came down to the place where she and her brother were being held, and extended a hand towards them. Some of the other slaves hesitated, but she did not. She took the warrior’s hand, and started her life anew.
Now, she was no longer Bel. She was Bel Vizla, crusader of the Mandalorians. Her brother was taken in by the Mand’alor himself and given a new name, but that did not sever their bond. All Mandalorians were brothers and sisters. They were united as a people. They were one.
This was the Way.
Years passed. Battles were fought. Some were won, others were lost. A deal was made with a Dark Lord. Mand’alor fell and a new one rose to take his place. In the meantime, they bid their time, waiting for the moment when they would rise up again.
Before long, she started hearing whispers about a Great Last Battle—the Ani’la Akaan. The new Mand’alor had begun acting differently. Whereas before he had advised them to lay low and to be patient, now he was calling them to arms, rallying them for what would be the ultimate battle. A new crusade.
She was weary, but her brother was quick to take arms and don the new armor that Mand’alor had forged. She chose to keep her old armor; it had become a part of her, a representation of who she was. But more than that, it stood for what she believed in: a sense of honor and virtue. Something that she felt the Mandalorians had lost as Mand’alor pushed for the glory of battle and nothing else. Her brother, much to her despair, had lost himself to the rhetoric and now served as Mand’alor’s right-hand man.
Still, she continued to fight. If nothing else, she would see this through and help her brothers and sisters live to see the Great Last Battle.
But then came Cathar.
Three years after Mand’alor had given the order to mobilize their forces in preparation for the Great Last Battle, they came to Cathar to take their revenge on its felinoid people. Two decades prior, the Cathar had stood with the Republic and helped saw to the Mandalorians’ first defeat, a disgrace they had never known in the three thousand years of their people’s existence.
The Cathar had been caught off-guard. Without the Republic or the Jedi to turn to, they were swiftly defeated and the remaining survivors had been cornered.
She thought that it should have ended there. But then her brother gave the order.
“Finish them,” Cassus Fett said.
Her eyes went wide behind her mask. She looked down at the Cathar people staring back up at them. Not all of them were fighters. Some of them were children; far too young to even know why they were being slaughtered like this. They weren’t the ones who had delivered the Mandalorians their first defeat all those years ago. They didn’t deserve this.
She looked into their eyes and did not see the enemy. She saw herself, and her brother, at the mercy of cyborganic monsters.
Only, this time, she was the monster.
Hovering on her jetpack, she flew over to situate herself between her fellow Mandalorians and the Cathar, staring straight at her brother.
“Cassus, wait! They’re defeated! We don’t have to do this!”
Her brother’s face was hidden behind his mask, but it would not have made a difference if she could have seen it. The past twenty years had shaped him into a cold-hearted warrior, one that obeyed every order his Mand’alor gave him. Regardless if it was just or not.
“The Cathar left a stain of dishonor amongst the Mando’ade,” Cassus Fett replied coolly, his voice carrying no hint of remorse. “Today, I wash it clean in the waters of their own presumption. But if you truly feel they need a defender to stand with them….”
She heard the others prime their weapons, pointing them at her and the Cathar. No words would dissuade them from this. The only thing more impenetrable than a Mandalorian’s armor was their will.
“Then do so, warrior. I salute you.”
Warrior. Not sister. It was in that moment that Bel Vizla realized that the brother she knew had truly died all those years ago. Perhaps he had done so from the moment he had taken their savior’s hand.
The Mandalorians opened fire and Bel Vizla knew no more.
* * *
Ten years passed.
A Jedi revanchist stood in the waters of Cathar, holding the mask of the one who had spoken out. It had shown him, through her eyes, the events that had unfolded on that fateful day.
“They were beaten!” he screamed at the mask, but not at the one who had wore it. “You didn’t have to do it! One of you knew, but you didn’t listen!”
Turmoil raged in the Jedi’s heart, but it was quickly supplanted by something else. Not peace, but… focus. Determination. After fighting this crusade for so long, he had finally gotten the Jedi Council to see what he had known all along; something that this sole warrior had failed to do all those years ago.
He turned the mask around, hovering it over his face.
“I don’t know your name… but I take up your cause.”
He placed it over his head. He was surprised at how… comfortable it felt. Almost as if it had been made for him.
“I will not remove your mask until there is justice.” He ignited the violet blade of his lightsaber and held it high to the sky. “Until the Mandalorians have been defeated once and for all. So swears… Revan!”
No one knew who he was until he had put on the mask.
But now, they would.
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