When SWG decided to kill off the Creature Handlers, I wrote a story about the transition from being a Creature Handler to being a Bounty Hunter.. It's a bit crude, as I was still a bit of a beginner at writing, but I'm reviving this hunter for SW:TOR. :) Understandably, the eras are millennia apart, but it still is what makes me want to play a bounty hunter in SW:TOR. :)
Kageboushi took up arms and left Iridonia as a young man so that he could help keep the Empire safe from the rebel insurgents. His start was slow, starting off as a lowly scout, but he showed aptitude and became a master of his profession. Along his journey, he had found he had an amazing connection with animals, so he naturally took the next step and became a creature handler.
Kageboushi tamed many animals during his career, and he loved them all, even the savage quenkers. He saw the end coming, though, long before it came. It started small, with cantina and shop owners banning even the smallest creatures from their premesis.
True to his name, Kageboushi faded into the shadows with his pets; he didn't want to bring unwanted attention to them, though he knew it was already too late. He had seen it coming, he had tried to warn his comrades, but few would listen and even they would dismiss his claims.
Then it happened: An Empire-wide decree that the keeping and handling of dangerous creatures and the profession associated with it was to be banned. The declaration came down like a bolt of lightning for every creature handler, even Kageboushi. He had made preperations for this day, though; as soon as the Imperial decree had aired, he was in space putting his plans into motion.
The journey was as quick as it was discrete, and went completely un-noticed. Kageboushi had travelled to the homeworlds of his pets and released them into the wild, he knew that if he did not, they would be trapped in data-form for eternity.
This, apparently, was not enough for some of the citizens that called for an end to the Creature Handlers. They had been watching him, following him, tracking him from space. Had they done so from the ground, he would have known it and been able to confront them.
He found it more difficult to let go than he had ever imagined and regularly visited his now free pets; he brought them treats, gave them baths, and administered medicines when needed. Had he known that he was being watched, he would have been much more discrete, but he could not and he did not.
One day, on one of his regular visits to Yavin, he was saddened by what he found. His giant mawgax had been killed, slain by a sapient with a high powered blaster.
'Some fool hunter probably killed Dia for sport', Kage told himself as he buried her.
If only he knew how wrong he was. He would soon find out, though. As he travelled from planet to planet, he found the remains of his pets all slain in the same fashion, and it was apparent he was not dealing with an ordinary game hunter. The kills were all fresh, so he knew he was not far behind the culprit. He tried to get ahead, to save his pets before the hunter got to them, but time and time again he was met with only the corpse of an old and beloved friend.
It didn't take Kage very long to figure out how they had found his pets and why they were doing this. He knew there was only one planet with which they would have trouble: Dathomir.
He flew to Dathomir and tracked down Mambo, his pet rancor. The mists here had hidden his movements well and Mambo was still safe, but that could change at any moment. After a bit of a struggle with his now petulant pet, he managed to get him safely into the cargo hold before heading off to track down the hunter.
He knew his presence here was known, but since he had risked landing somewhere besides the two outposts, they didn't know where; he would have to change that. On one of the higher plateus, he set up his largest field base and stoked a roaring fire before going to bed.
Upon awakening, he activated his seismic monitor and checked the area for humanoid signatures. The device whirred and clicked and returned a single result. Kage narrowed his eyes and clenched his teeth as a sinister grin spread across his face.
"Gotcha!"
He forced himself to be casual as he walked out of the field base, he knew they were watching him from orbit, but only until he descended into the mist and brush. Once he was away from the prying eyes of his orbiting stalkers, it didn't take him long to track down his quarry. Finding them was easy, because they were trying to find him, and they were sloppy about it. They were too busy making noise of their own to hear Kage set the timer on a lecepanine dart trap and too occupied with what they were doing to notice it until it rolled up next to them.
As the hunter lay there, bleeding from the lecepanine spurs, wrists bound to ankles, it was easy to make him talk. He was a gun for hire, he said, paid only to kill some animals. They gave him locations and migratory patterns and told him it would all be easy, that they would guide him from space.
Kageboushi felt a glimmer of pity for the Mon Cal that lay before him, dying from lecepanine poisoning. He gave him one last choice, to relay a message to his clients that the mission was complete and receive a merciful and quick end, or do nothing and be taken to the Dathomir Sarlacc and tossed in to be digested to death. Understandably, the poor fool opted to relay the message.
Kageboushi took one last pull from his death stick and put it out in the dead Mon Cal's eye. He heaved a heavy sigh and fell back onto a tree as the memory of burying his pets all rushed back to him. He buried his head in his hands and tears streamed through his fingers, then as suddenly as the tears had came, they were gone. His eyes red, his teeth clenched, he knew what to do next.
His fists clenched and unclenched as he stalked back to his ship, making a point not to go back to camp and collect his gear. As he stomped up the boarding ramp he paused to look at the crushed death-stick pack in his hand, he sneered and threw it aside; he wouldn't need those anymore, not if he wanted to stay sharp.
Mambo shied away from him as he walked through the hold, and keened. Kage didn't notice, his mind was focused on one thing: Revenge. He went to his cabin, threw his storage lockers onto the deck, and kicked through their spilled contents. Cursing, he made his way to the engine room and found what he was looking for neatly stowed in a tool closet. He gathered it all up and carried it back to the hold, dumping it onto the deck in front of Mambo before climbing up the creature's back to comfort it.
Once Mambo was relaxed and comfortable, Kageboushi climbed down and began offering up his find to his last pet, allowing it to smell and taste each piece. After it was suitably satisfied, Kage started buckling the armor on slowly, stopping occasionally to allow Mambo to smell and taste him so that it would be able to watch and comprehend his change in appearance and smell.
Kageboushi climbed the stairs to the bridge and checked the scanners for orbiting ships; finding none, he linked to the system's communications satellite and used it to scan the surrounding parsec for ships. After spending the next hour sorting through all of the ships, he found a signature he could mimic and reconfigured his transponder frequencies to match so he could leave the system un-noticed.
The hunt had begun...
2
It had been a year since he started his hunt; a long, long year. Kageboushi's mind had slipped, it showed in his every move, but his resolve was stronger than durasteel. These two aspects alone could have made him a feared Bounty Hunter had he not desired anonymity.
Like many bounty hunters that appeared after Fett, he wore a helmet and armor; this was not so much an imitation as a necessity. The people he hunted could not know that he was after them, they had to believe he met his end on Dathomir at the hands of the Mon Calamari. Unlike Boba Fett's imitators, though, Kageboushi would change his armor often to hinder recognition.
It was a year after he had started his hunt, his mind had slipped and his boot was on someone's neck.
"Wha-urk! Whaddya want from me?!"
Kageboushi pulled a datapad from his pack and tossed it onto the ground for the man to see. Displayed was a file he had found about himself on his victim's database, he used the barrel of his rifle to nudge the pad into view.
"Wh-ckkk!" his victim choked as he shifted his weight onto the back of the man's neck.
"I want you to think about what you are going to say before you say it, now. Keep in mind that if you don't tell me what I want to hear, and I know you know what I want to hear, that I will slowly crush your neck." The man squeeked a little as the weight shifted to Kage's other foot. "Now... Tell me about this Zabrak."
The man blinked at the datapad for a moment and turned a watery eye towards the composite and chitin clad figure standing over him.
"I said talk!" Kage shouted and fired a shot into the man's thigh, burning a hole straight through to the gravel beneath him.
The man screamed and began sobbing, tears streaming across his face. Kage placed the barrel of the rifle against the base of the man's spine, "TALK!"
"He's just some guy." He managed between sobs, "We hired a Mon Cal hunter to kill him."
"Just him?!" Kage growled through clenched teeth.
"No," he sobbed, "him and his..." and the man realized exactly what was going on. He panicked and began struggling to get away but a swift strike from Kage's rifle stock to the back of his head rendered him unconscious.
He awoke face down on a lush carpet with a splitting headache and a searing pain in his leg. He went to raise a hand to feel his head and realised it was bound to his opposite foot. With his free hand he propped himself up and looked out a massive bank of windows into space.
"You said 'we'..."
He twisted around to see the armored figure again, blurred this time from the pain and tears in his eyes, "We...?"
"You said 'We hired a Mon Cal', who is 'we'?"
"I... I don't know what you're talking about, I-"
"I found you, I can find them. Mambo!"
There was a gutteral rumble nearby, he propped himself on his elbow and wiped the mucus and tears from his eyes and blinked a few times before his brain would allow him to believe just exactly what he saw.
"Din dins, Mambo."
He wanted to scream as the rancor reached for him, he wanted to scream but couldn't find his voice; he only barely remembered how to breathe before taking his last gulp of air.
