EPISODE II

Chapter 10: Defector

It has been three galactic standard months since the Battle of Alpheridies, the elimination of the Kur'Ada Equalists, and the destruction of Gestroma's bio-weapon laboratory on Nelvaan. Now, the Galactic Alliance only has two more planets on the list of Forceless Archfiend locations that Zolph Vaelor retrieved from the Obelisk data archive on Charros IV.

In the operations room of the Jedi academy on Ossus, Zolph and Hiriss Moraana are receiving new objectives from Headmaster Luke Skywalker and Grein.

"So, what's new?" Zolph asked, ready for whatever was to come to next.

Luke then answered. "Our intel believes they have found out which Archfiend the Valkoran are prioritizing next."

"That's wonderful, because we're almost finished with that list. Well, don't keep us waiting. Where are we going next?"

"Guaymar." Luke answered.

Hiriss then spoke up. "Never heard of that planet until now. What do you know about it?"

"According to General Choi's report, the sky's always dark due to the many layers of clouds, has little vegetation and has a crashed colony ship as one of its landmarks. Also, the wildlife is hostile."

"In other words, it's pretty drab." Zolph responded. "So, any idea who's leading the Valks down there?"

"It's Masochus." Grein answered and this triggered a slight reaction in Zolph.

Zolph then spoke with a slight tint of anger in his voice. "So it's him…"

Troubled, Hiriss asked Zolph. "Is something wrong?"

"I'll explain more on the way to Guaymar."

Grein then chimed in. "And we're taking the Manta."

Knowing why she'd tag along, Zolph tried to question the purple-eyed Chiss. "You're not coming just because of….?"

"Not just that. I'm also coming along for… other reasons. Besides, unlike the other Valkoran leaders you've met so far, there's no way Masochus is going to try to kill Stythanyx if he successfully summons him."

"Alright then. We're off to Guaymar, ladies!" Zolph then rushed out of the ops room.

Hiriss then sighed in disbelief. "Can you please not do that? It makes you sound like a womanizer."

"You get used to it." Grein commented to her.

"How?"

"I used to have a part-time job in a club on Sleheyron." Grein casually told Hiriss.

Hiriss then questioned her with surprise. "You?! I know you look very young for your age, but you're forty-one!"

"I had to make credits somehow when I was younger. And to my surprise, I made about as much money as the Twi'leks."

"It's probably the eyes. And from my experience, males of any species seem to always have a thing for alien girls on the near-human spectrum, and it's almost never the other way around."

"My only regret about that job is that some of the clients I worked for were species like Gamorreans and Hutts, and you don't know how obnoxiously flamboyant Sleheyron Hutts are."

The two girls could then hear Zolph screaming from outside, clearly as disturbed as Hiriss. "Why did you tell me that when I just left the room?! Now I'm going to have to work to get that image out of my head! Can we please just go already and never talk about this again?!"

Grein then sighed. "Humans. But I can understand why he'd be disgusted."


Later, when the Blazing Manta was traveling through hyperspace, Zolph and Hiriss were entertaining themselves with a game of Dejarik holo-chess while Grein kept the ship on course. Right after Hiriss won the game by finishing off Zolph's remaining Mantellian savrip with a k'lor'slug, she questioned him.

"Okay, you said you'd tell me on the trip. So what's your problem with this Masochus guy?"

Zolph then answered her somewhat reluctantly. "From what some of the Valks have told me, Masochus was the one who grafted that arm on Dynn's stump. In short, he is one of those responsible for what happened to her."

"Really? You don't think maybe Valkor just forced him into doing it?"

"It's possible, but I highly doubt he didn't take pleasure in it. Judging from testimony from within the Valks, he's very unpopular even within their ranks, and I have met sympathetic Valks before."

"Hmm. If we meet him, he'll be getting his just desserts. Anyway, another game?"

Grein then yelled from the cockpit into the lounge room. "You'll want to put that game on hold, you two, because we're about to come out of hyperspace."

Just ten seconds later, the Manta dropped out of hyperspace into the Vakmin system, and Zolph and Hiriss rushed to the cockpit to witness a space battle between several Alliance Assault Frigates and Valkoran Judicator frigates. The Valkoran were also using Mailoc-class boarding craft along with escorts of Firaxa-class fighters.

Realizing their objectives were on the ground and that the Alliance already had good support ins space from the elite Rogue Squadron, Grein flew towards Guaymar's surface while Zolph and Hiriss headed to the quad-laser turrets to provide cover fire.


As the Manta passed through Guaymar's grey-tinted clouds, her crew witnessed a firefight on the surface. They then received a pre-recorded communications transmission from the Alliance encampment.

"This is General Ven Choi to the crew of the Blazing Manta. I would not recommend landing anywhere except for in our camp. This planet is not safe, right now."

Zolph then responded to Choi. "Well, the Alliance and Valks have brought the war to this planet. Of course it isn't safe!"

"It's not just the Valkoran. I'll explain more when you arrive. Or you may notice as you get closer to the ground." The transmission then ended.


Not long after the transmission, the Manta landed at the Alliance encampment's landing zone. As the boarding ramp opened up, the crew was surprise-greeted by what looked like a human Alliance trooper, but his armor was fractured and his flesh was pale and somewhat damaged, almost like a walking corpse.

"Hello!" Zolph greeted the trooper with a tone of shock.

The trooper then let out a feral shriek before charging up the ramp, but before he could get very far and try to tear the Jedi apart, a blaster bolt tore through his forehead – even with a helmet on - from behind and he fell down. Standing behind the deceased trooper was a Kel Dor general armed with a recently-fired blaster pistol.

"WHAT?! WHAT?! WHAT?!"

"And koh-toh-ya to you too, Masters Vaelor, Moraana and Grein." General Choi greeted them. "There's more where that one came from outside the camp, hence why I told you not to land out there."

Hiriss then asked him. "General, why the hell did one of your own men try to kill us?"

"Don't be fooled. Sergeant Bac died fifteen minutes ago."

Zolph then asked. "Hold on. So we're dealing with the undead now?"

"In addition to the Valkoran. On a side note, they aren't having it any easier than we are."

"I don't know if this would be helpful realistically, but from my experience watching horror films, the undead always have a source to their reanimation. Are they viral or supernatural?"

"Come to the med lab. Let's talk where we're not out in the open. And you may want to secure the ship."


Inside the medical shelter, General Choi showed the Jedi the corpse of another recently undead trooper.

"Our autopsies don't show any signs of unusual bacteria; nothing out of the ordinary for dead bodies."

Zolph then responded. "So they're the supernatural type of undead."

"It's not just here that the dead are rising back up. Reports say this is happening all over the planet. Anyone dies on this planet, they reanimate."

Grein then commented. "Shavit, we're too late. Stythanyx was summoned long before we got here, and according to my sources, he was an old god of death in some religions."

"Fan-kriffing-tastic." Zolph sarcastically responded. "This day keeps getting better. First the undead, and now a necromantic Archfiend that also happens to be a supposed god."

"Well, then that would explain the Forceless presence I felt. If you need any leads as to where your hideous friend may be, the Valkoran are operating near that wrecked colony ship. But we've got another problem as well…"

"Surprise, surprise. What else is new?"

"Even before the undeath outbreaks, our troops have come across some strange entities inside the ship, sometimes ambushing them and sucking out their blood, and local legends say that ghost-like creatures – possibly the ghosts of the original crew - haunt the wreckage, preying on the living. Some of those that escaped the ship mysteriously died four days later. We don't know exactly what killed them, but autopsies show they experienced extreme fear at time of death."

Grein further commented. "Judging by that description, those aren't ghosts. Those are the Hands of Stythanyx."

Hiriss asked curiously. "The Hands? That sounds like the name of a cult, and considering that you mentioned him being an old god, that's not very surprising."

"The Hands are Stythanyx's four personal agents, even before he was an Archfiend, but they're not a cult, Hiriss. They're actually psychically linked extensions of him. However, if one of them were to see all four of them at least once, they would be marked for death. And you won't know if you've seen them all since they all look exactly the same."

"Scary."

"As for what they were doing before their master was summoned, I would assume they were sent ahead thousands of years ago as scouts when the Rakata were still in power. So in a sense, Stythanyx was here even before he was summoned."

Zolph then looked at Grein suspiciously. "I've worked with you for over a year now and you know an awful lot about these freaks, Grein, but you've never told me where your sources come from."

Grein then huffed. "Now you're getting suspicious? You'll find out in due time, but not right now."

General Choi further commented. "Some survivors also brought photographic data of these creatures. People who even only saw images of them have died within a few days of seeing them too. We must have gotten images of each one of them by accident, and thankfully, I've only seen one of those images. In that case, it's a good thing I've decided to bar access to the images and now I know they need to be destroyed so no one else dies from looking at them."

Zolph then asked Grein another question. "Any way of breaking this four-day death curse?"

Grein answered him. "My sources haven't said anything about this, but I would assume killing Stythanyx could sever the will of the Hands."

"So if we were to somehow meet all four of the Hands, we would only have four days to kill Stythanyx before we die. That shouldn't be much of a problem since we're usually able to kill Archfiends in the course of one day."

Hiriss then further commented. "Provided we don't procrastinate or panic over our imminent deaths."

"Well, then what are we waiting for? Let's get out there, get rid of the Archfiend, and end this undead apocalypse."


As Zolph, Grein and Hiriss made their way to the wrecked ship across Guaymar's dark landscape, they aided the Alliance forces in fighting off both Valkoran and undead forces, whether the latter come from the corpses of local species, Alliance or Valkoran. Some of undead even learned to use blasters.

As they got closer, they even made their way through a forest of Antirr trees – distinguished by their dark blue trunks, four big blue leaves diverging from each other like petals on a flower, and a bigger purple bulb between the leaves. In addition to dealing with some predators – undead or not -, disguised among the trees were Antirr Dragons – sedentary predators with heads resembling the plant bulbs and an eye on each hemispherical jaw. Despite their natural camouflage, they were actually animals and not carnivorous plants, as the undead Antirr Dragons – and thus undisguised – were shown to have skeletons.

Eventually, they made it out of the Antirr forest and came across a large crater, and inside it was the wreckage of the colony ship, which was of a design that has never been seen in the galaxy before. Also surrounding the crater were several Valkoran landing barges, shuttles and camps.

After a few minutes of inspecting around the outside of the crater, Grein made a report. "From the looks of things, I would assume Stythanyx's temple is underground and connected to the ship via tunnel, or the temple is inside the ship itself."

"Kinda like Belluzub and the Death Star Forge. So we're going into the ghost ship after all." Zolph commented nervously. "If what we heard about the Hands is true, going through a forest of man-eating fake plants will be a walk through one of Coruscant's parks compared to this."

Hiriss then commented as well. "I won't lie. I'm little scared of what's inside too, but I'm more scared of what will happen if we don't kill this Archfiend."

"I couldn't agree more. Let's just go in and be done."

The three Jedi made their way towards an entrance into the ship, making sure to avoid any falling pieces of loose debris.


The inside of the alien colony ship was very dark, littered with corpses and only illuminated by the very little natural light from outside courtesy of Guaymar's thick clouds and some flickering lights and other systems that still had some power left to them despite the ship being well over several thousand years old.

"I sense both a Forceless presence and the Dark Side here." Hiriss said as she and the rest of the team cautiously looked moved through the ship to prevent an ambush.

"That would be the Archfiend and Masochus, respectively." Grein told her.

Zolph then tried to get Hiriss to lower her guard. "Isn't it looking at the Hands that would get us killed? So don't keep your eyes open for them."

"But if we're not careful, they'll kill us much faster than their curse." Hiriss responded.

"Then stay alert with another sense."

As they moved through dimly lit halls, Grein and Hiriss – just in front of Zolph – turned around to notice a light but large pale-skinned creature right behind him. It had one big milky white eye, a shelled body that seemingly floated, two long tentacle-like arms with hands on the tips that dragged along the floor, and a long trunk with a lamprey-like mouth on the tip – surrounded by four grasping mandibles - that also dragged along the ground like a snake's body.

"Zolph, whatever you do, do not turn around!" Hiriss warned him.

As the creature lifted its arms off the floor and proceeded to wrap them around Zolph, he made an unsurprised comment and readied his lightsaber. "Don't tell me: One of the Hands is right behind me." Without turning his head around, he activated his lightsaber and slashed the creature in half before it could sink its teeth into his skull. With the creature dead, Zolph turned around to get one look at its corpse.

"Dammit, Zolph! I told you not to turn around!"

"Hey, it can't curse me if it's dead, right? But if it still can, we all just get one curse point." He then made another observation on the creature's corpse and asked Grein. "Are you sure this is a Hand? Judging by the skin coloration and the eye, it doesn't look like a Forceless host."

Grein then answered him. "I'm very sure. Like I told you, they're psychically linked to Stythanyx, so there wouldn't be any need to have them physically infected with Black Matter too. Besides, it's possible the curse may work against the Collective too."

"But from what I just saw, it seems we can kill them. But if you're that worried about them and we weren't told we could kill them..." Zolph then contacted General Choi over comlink. "Zolph Vaelor to Ven Choi. I just ran into one of the Hands and killed it."

Choi then responded. "Some of the scouts that went to the ship also reported killing some of them."

"Then are we clear?"

"Six times. And according to what Grein just told us about them, there are supposed to be four of them."

"Just as I thought. That means they can't die. But since I would assume your guys were putting blaster holes in them, is it safe to assume cutting them apart will keep them down?" Zolph then noticed the Hand's corpse vanish while emitting a howling. "Oh blast."

"Now you know what to expect. Keep your guard up at all times." The transmission then ended.

As they moved through the ship and closer to the Archfiend's presence, they were ambushed by more of the undead and the ghost-like Hands repeatedly – sometimes just disappearing into thin air before they could be cut down.


By the time they made it near the Archfiend's sanctum, the Jedi trio had already encountered the Hands no less than four times. They weren't quite sure if they have met all four of them individually since they all looked exactly the same, but they could assume they were marked for death now.

"Well, it looks like we've reached our Archfiend, and we've probably got four days until we die." Zolph said.

"I'm not completely sure if killing Stythanyx will save us and all the living currently affected by the curse, but at the very least, the curse won't get to anyone else." Hiriss said.

The two of them and Grein then entered the room, which looked like a large Rakatan religious site with a big pit in the center, and littered on the floor of the room were corpses – some of them from Valkoran Trooper Lieutenant Will Helms, who was apparently killed over and over again – and suspended from the ceiling were more hung corpses. But the biggest attraction in the room - floating above the pit - was Stythanyx himself. He looked like a larger version of the Hands – about the same size as Mandoculus -, except obviously Forceless-possessed, had four eyes, four arms and four mouths, all symmetrically placed.

"So you made it past our Hands. That's quite some determination. But you four now have our mark embedded inside. In four days time, you will join the dead and serve by our side." Stythanyx told them with all four mouths.

Zolph then addressed the bizarre creature. "You must be Stythanyx. And yes, we are aware of your little curse. But answer me this? If you were to die, would your curse break?"

"Ironically, we do not know the answer to that, for we have yet to die for ourselves. But you three have proved to be the most courageous beings we have met, to stand up to oppose us. As a result of our abilities to control death, most beings feared us and revered us as a god, but those ones are misguided if they think of us as a god. This is a pleasing change of pace."

Hiriss then questioned him too. "If you're so bored with people fearing you, why have you sided with the Collective, because from what I've heard, Archfiends serve the Collective willingly?"

Zolph joined in on her comment. "Yeah, you seem like a reasonable whatever you are. Why serve these crazies?"

Stythanyx then answered him. "The Collective needs warriors, warriors bring death, and death is our only law."

"No other sane living being could comprehend your thought processes."

"They could not."

The Jedi activated their lightsabers and Grein commented. "But enough chat. We need to end you so the curse breaks."

"Why bother trying to erase the mark? Death is an inevitability."

"We know that."

Zolph then backed up her comment. "But we'd rather stay alive longer."

"We see." Stythanyx commented. "More mortals that refuse to embrace the inevitable, but since you worked so hard to make it this far, we will give you a choice. You can attempt to destroy us. If you win, you possibly erase our mark and live a full life. If you lose however, you will expire much sooner. We also offer you the chance to leave and make the best of your remaining time."

"That last one's not an option for us. Four days is way too short for us. Right, girls?" Zolph asked Grein and Hiris.

"Of course." Grein answered.

"Do I even need to answer that one?" Hiriss responded.

Zolph then spoke to the Archfiend again. "And the troupe has spoken."

"So you've made your choice then. We admire your bravery." Stythanyx commended them. "But do not think we will go easy on you."

Stythanyx lifted his arms and his four eyes flashed, and some of the corpses rose up from the floor while the hanging corpses dropped down like rotting fruit. The undead monstrosities' eyes glowed and they then let out feral shrieks. The undead that weren't armed used charged at the Jedi to tear them apart with their claws and fangs. However, the undead were no match for the Jedi.

Stythanyx then made another summoning gesture, and this time, all four of the Hands showed up, trying to warp right behind the Jedi and lashing their tentacle-like arms towards them from a distance.

However, the Hands just proved to be another nuisance to the Jedi, as even though they couldn't die, cutting them down would keep them away for a while. Eventually, Stythanyx decided to attack them directly, trying to smash them with his tentacle-hands and his lamprey-like mouths.

When the massive creature lunged one of his trunks at them in an attempt to devour one of the Jedi, Zolph jumped on top of it and then ran across it towards one of his eyes to stab into it with his lightsaber. Stythanyx reacted in pain and then grabbed Zolph before throwing him back onto the ring surrounding the pit.

Grein and Hiriss proceeded to do the same with Stythanyx's other three eyes, but the creature to stop them in their tracks, but to no avail. After their strikes, he had only one functioning eye left.

Seeing as the eyes were very sensitive, Zolph tried to simply shoot the last one with his blaster, but Stythanyx simply closed his last eye and blocked the bolt with his protective but transparent membrane, which took on the appearance of a torn-up eyelid. Stythanyx then reacted by trying to smash the Jedi with the two arms the functioning eye was between, but the Jedi responded by slicing them off.

He then lunged one of the trunks away from the functioning eye at them, but Zolph once again ran up it and climbed towards the functioning eye. Using his strength-enhanced mechanical arm, he forced his eyelid open and then stabbed into it.

Now completely blinded, Stythanyx eratically tried to lunge all four of his trunks at the Jedi, but Zolph proceeded to finish off the massive Archfiend by tricking him into swallowing a thermal detonator.

As he collapsed into the pit, Stythanyx weakly held onto the ring with his remaining two arms, but while he was dying, took the time to commend the Jedi. "So, this is what dying is like? And our eyes may not work anymore, but we can see that our mark on you is disappearing. So you win this struggle and have successfully defied death. But before we die, please answer us. What is the purpose of being alive when all life expires eventually?"

Zolph then answered him. "From what I believe, I don't really think there's a universal meaning to life. Every one of us individually makes it for ourselves and in turn, we help others to live and enjoy life to their fullest."

"We see. So it's all really a matter of faith and conviction. Thank you for your answer, and continue to live on." Stythanyx then died and collapsed into the pit. The Hands also disappeared while any other reanimated corpses collapsed to the floor.

"So everyone else is finally free of the death curse." Hiriss commented.

"But I can still sense Masochus here." Zolph responded.


The Jedi then jumped into the hole where Stythanyx's body fell.

At the bottom of the pit where Stythanyx's corpse lied were even more ruins, and even dozens more corpses from Lieutenant Helms. But what stood out even more was another corpse standing up, elaborately dressed in black and red robes, but underneath it was skinned down almost to the bone, but with some sensory organs such as the eyes – which were gold and red in color – and very few muscles still intact.

"Nothing noteworthy down here except for that distinctively clothed and skinned corpse. He must have died in both a painful and humiliating way to still be standing up like that." Zolph commented.

The corpse then suddenly jerked its head upward and then spoke to the Jedi. "Are you insinuating that I'm another one of those corpses? I never died to begin with, you ignorant little shavits!"

Zolph then questioned the corpse. "You're Masochus, I take it? By the way, if you haven't noticed, your plans have been foiled… again."

"That would also be Darth Masochus, but I no longer carry that title ever since those fools in the Sith Empire exiled me!"

"Let me guess: you were exiled because you were considered insane even by Sith standards."

"Yes. But what's wrong with ordering people to come to my office, making them look like me and mounting them on my wall? Last I heard before they cast me out, the Lords of the Sith could do whatever they pleased!"

"As much as they were known for killing minions for failure or each other for power positions, I highly doubt they were that wasteful!"

Masochus then halted his lecture. "Hold on one second." He then yelled erratically enough to echo into the ship. "HELMS! HELMS! I ORDER YOU TO COME HERE RIGHT NOW!"

Lieutenant Will Helms then entered not long after he called, resurrected once more. Annoyed with the blatantly insane ex-Sith Lord, he sighed. "For the last kriffing time, My Lord, I'm not dying again just to provide you with another corpse!"

"But I only need one more!" Masochus told him in a childish tone.

"You said that the last time it happened!"

Masochus then jerked his right arm upward like a macabre marionette – apparently having to move his own body parts with the Force – and electrocuted Helms to death with Force lightning from his bony finger tips. "All done! THE ARMY OF HELMS!... is complete." He then used the Force to reanimate all of Helms' corpses. "Stythanyx wasn't the only the necromancer here." He then commanded the army of corpses to attack the Jedi. "Dinner is served!"

Some of the undead Helms tried to charge at the Jedi while others aimlessly tried to gun them down, but they were all easily taken down.

Zolph sighed in annoyance. "You just reinforced my point." He then changed subject. "On another note, how did you end up like that? Did the rest of the Sith have you skinned as an ironic punishment before exiling you? And how the hell are you still alive?"

Masochus then scoffed. "For your information, Zolphy boy, I actually did this to myself. Some like myself actually derive pleasure from pain. As for your last question, the Dark Side of the Force."

"That's a pretty vague answer."

Grein then backed up Masochus's answer. "To put it more specifically, some Dark Jedi throughout history have survived injuries that would kill most people through intense hatred alone."

Hiriss then questioned Masochus. "But what could you possibly hate enough to survive having no skin, because the skin is supposed to protect your internal organs from infection?"

Masochus then answered her. "Everyone… and everything, but no particular reason for it."

Zolph responded. "So, it's compulsive hatred. The creature with a weird sense of morality we just killed was saner than you are." He then changed the subject again, but his tone as well. "But enough talk about that. You will answer for your actions."

"My actions?"

"Don't play innocent with me, Sithspawn. You turned an innocent woman into a monster."

"Could you be more specific? I've turned a lot of people into so-called monsters."

Zolph, clearly angered, then gave Masochus a more intense glare. "Dynn. Manthis."

"Oh, her. So someone told you that I gave her that arm? Probably one of my finest creations in centuries. From I've seen, she was pretty ugly until that arm fixed her up."

Even more angered by his comment, Zolph proceeded to throttle Masochus with the Force. "How? By mutilating her body?! By robbing of her free will?! You are sick man, Masochus!"

Hiriss then attempted to calm Zolph down. "Zolph! This is exactly what he wants. Don't kill him out of anger."

Zolph then let go of Masochus and spoke to Hiriss. "You should have plenty of reason to be angry at him, too, Hiriss."

Masochus then tried while he continued trying to gasp for breath. "Yes, rip out my windpipe, why don't you? The Dark Side is amazing isn't it?"

"I disagree, because the last few times I've tasted it, it was very bitter. And you Dark Siders would have more success making me fall if you'd stop reminding me that I'm slipping close to it."

"Well, that's disappointing." Masochus then turned his attention towards Hiriss. "By the way, uh… Hiriss, right? You look almost just like Manthis. Only difference is that you're a lesser alien species, green girl."

Slightly agitated his blatantly speciest comment, Hiriss responded back. "I'm her cousin, you slimeball."

"Oh, you're a half-breed, and the thought of humans or Sith breeding with lesser species is even more disgusting. But what difference does it make? I hate everyone equally." Masochus then turned his attention to both Zolph and Grein. "By the way, blue girl there used to work for us."

This comment really got Zolph's attention.

"Oh, I'm sorry. Was that supposed to be a secret?" Masochus mockingly asked them.

Grein then spoke up. "Actually, I was going to tell him that right after this mission. You just blew the lid open sooner, you butcher."

Zolph, somewhat confused by the revelation, questioned Grein. "Is this really true?"

"Yes, but you shouldn't be that surprised? How else do you think I would've gotten my information on the Forceless Collective?"

"Why didn't tell me this sooner?"

"I couldn't have told you the first time we met on Sleheyron. At that point in time, you already hated the Valkoran enough for their involvement in your parents' deaths."

"You got a point there. I was kind of an impulsive idiot back then."

Masochus then tried to push Zolph's buttons even further. "Now you know that this traitor has been keeping secrets from you. Do you still consider her an ally after that?"

"This changes nothing, bone bag. She may have been cryptic as hell, but she's proved her worth time and time again, and I trust that she had good reasons to keep that a secret from me until now."

Masochus then addressed Grein. "As for you, Ze'grein'aradi, how's life away from the family of your time treating you?"

To Zolph's surprise, this triggered a furious but still tranquil reaction in Grein. "You shut your mouth or you lose your tongue too."

"Oh please, you should know by now that I would enjoy that. Your husband is still being a wrench in Emperor Valkor's plans, and your little sister is still serving her time in the Collective, but after about 4,000 years, I think she's given up on any hope that you would save her and believes you to have abandoned her."

Grein's usual stoicism then broke and she liquefied her left arm to grapple Masochus and attempted to boil him alive in it. "You will not speak that way about Emilin, you scum! And you're the one who sold her out!" She yelled at him with not just a less than subtle tone of anger in her voice, but a few tears building up in her purple eyes, even though they were mostly suppressed.

Masochus proceeded to twist the knife further by questioning Zolph again. "By the way, Vaelor, did she ever tell you she had a sister and husband?"

Zolph then answered him back. "She didn't tell me about having a husband, but she did tell me about her sister. Now that I think about it, she may have kept plenty of big secrets, but she never really lied to me."

Zolph then tried to calm Grein down, much like she and Hiriss did for him. "Calm yourself, Grein. You don't want the same thing you prevented happening to me to happen to you."

Seeing his point, Grein slammed Masochus onto the floor before letting him go and retracting her arm. "It's funny, Zolph. I assaulted a Valkoran fortress tank just to prevent you from falling, but look what just happened with me. I guess we all need each other to keep us in check."

Masochus got up back on his feet by levitating his own body into place and proceeded to mock the Jedi. "Bah! You Jedi and your emotional baggage! You sound like you came out of a self-help book!"

Hiriss then talked back to Masochus. "Oh shut up, ya talking corpse!"

Masochus in turn childishly scoffed at them. "Oh, fine! If none of you are going to break in the head, I'll break you literally!" He then levitated up into the arm and jerked his arms to fire bolts of Force Lightning at the Jedi.

The Jedi were temporarily incapacitated by the first few bolts, but they proceeded to dodge the others or block them with their lightsabers.

Zolph attempted to jump at Masochus, but the deranged ex-Sith Lord used the Force to levitate a red-bladed lightsaber to block the attack. Not having the muscle dexterity to physically wield it, Masochus telekinetically clashed swords with Zolph. While he was distracted, Masochus also used the Force to reanimate part of the recently-deceased Stythanyx's corpse to attack the other Jedi, but he could only reanimate part of him – namely his four tentacle-arms - since some parts were no longer functional after the battle and the creature's more supernatural abilities depended on his own willpower.

Seeing through the distraction, Hiriss threw her double-bladed lightsaber at Masochus to break his concentration, causing the lightsaber to fall to the ground and the Archfiend corpse to collapse. Zolph then took this opportunity to lunge at Masochus and pin him to the ground with his left arm by the chest.

After pinning him down, Zolph readied his mechanical fist to smash Masochus's skull.

"So are you ready to avenge Dynny's death?" Masochus taunted him.

"I'm not falling for that one again." Zolph responded back.

"But surely your anger is making you fail to realize I have another ace up my sleeve… literally." A syringe filled with what was clearly Black Matter then flew out of Masochus's right sleeve and swiftly injected it into Zolph's left arm, causing him to reel back in pain. "Morphing time!"

Knowing and fearing what was about to happen to him, Zolph questioned Masochus. "How the hell did you know about that?"

"Like the Chiss, Emperor Valkor has his sources."

Zolph then remembered something. Forceless are hive-minded and can see what other Forceless see, as was the case when Belluzub taunted him over Dynn's death despite that happening just a day prior to their encounter during the Battle of Krantisi. In this case, Valkor must have learned about Zolph's ability to absorb Forceless at the cost of going berserk through Harphscor and possibly Maesterus.

Masochus proceeded to taunt both Grein and Hiriss. "Well, you're friend's about to go nuts again. Have fun being killed by one of your allies, because I don't think he likes deceivers right now." He then tried to levitate away from the scene just as Zolph transformed into the creature he transformed into on Kashyyyk, but he was immediately stopped in his tracks by a prompt Force grip from Zolph.

Zolph then spoke to Masochus with a tone of only slightly subdued rage. "That was a very bad idea, because right now, I'm more unhappy with you." He then pulled Masochus over to him and prepared to skewer him with the blade-tipped tentacle coming out of the back of his head. "Your life ends now."

Before he could even stab his blade into Masochus, Zolph's grip on him slipped and he immediately reverted back to his default human form.

"Well, that didn't last as long as last time."

"Disappointing, the dosage must have been too small. But I learned something new at least." Masochus then counterattacked by hurling Force-lightning at the Jedi and quickly fled the scene while they were recovering from the shock. "I'll play with you another time."

"Damn! He got away!" Zolph slammed his fist on the ground.

Hiriss then commented. "But at least the Archfiend's dead."

"But we've got another problem. Forceless are hive-minded, and Valkor apparently learned about my transformation through at least Harphscor. Maesterus is also a Forceless host, but he's plotting against Valkor, so he may know about that too."


Much later, the Galactic Alliance military pulled out of the Vakmin system and left control of Guaymar to the Valkoran Empire now that Stythanyx was destroyed. They had no further reason to be there and the Guaymarans already favored the Valkoran to begin with.

With no further orders currently, the Jedi trio flew back to the academy in the Blazing Manta. As they made the journey through hyperspace, Zolph questioned Grein over what he just learned about her from Masochus.

"Ok, Grei, I'm not mad at you, but you have some explaining to do."

"Like I said, what Masochus said was true… this time. I really did work with the Valkoran around the time their empire was first formed. Other than that, he's usually a consummate liar." Grein answered him.

"I'd like to know more about who you are, and where you really came from."

"You know how I said I'm forty-one years old? That's only biologically speaking. Chronologically, I'm about four-thousand years old. From around the same time frame as all the other Valkoran Force-sensitive leadership except for Neur. She didn't come in until millennia after I left."

"Hold on. From what I heard, the Chiss weren't discovered in Old Republic space until the time of the Great Galactic War."

"You wonder why I'm the only purple-eyed Chiss you've ever seen? Aside from me and my sister, Ze'emilin'asana, purple-eyed Chiss are now endangered if not extinct."

"What happened to them?" Zolph asked.

"Interracial cleansing. Red-eyed Chiss are not usually Force-sensitive, but Chiss with eye-colors other than red are more likely to be, as was the case with me and my sister. At around the time I was born, the dominant red-eyes decided to purge the other races out of envy for our so-called 'witchcraft'. My father was executed while my mother – who was pregnant with Emilin at the time –, I and few other refugees fled from the Ascendancy."

Hiriss, who was listening in on the conversation too, facepalmed in annoyance. "It seems every planetary culture will have a bit of interspecies racism somewhere in their history."

Zolph tried to keep the story going. "Continue on."

"While what remained of my family traveled throughout the Outer Rim – our species still publicly unknown -, my sister and I were eventually discovered by the Jedi Order. And as we trained, we got to know people like Aiken Cremas, Master Argem Nylek, Cid Geero and of course, Seferin Vaelor."

"I've heard all the other names before, but who's Aiken?"

"Arcidus. Anyway, I don't think I need to tell you about Seferin being exiled from the Order, because while I was out on my own at one point, Juganak told me that he informed you about Maesterus's origins while you were on Dagobah. But what I should tell you is that I'm part of the reason he got exiled."

"Wait, you mean to tell me that you and Maesterus were….?"

"Yes, but we didn't really marry until we formed the Valkoran Empire."

"Then does that means you're my great times 'x' grandmother?"

"Yes."

"But the last blood test I took said I was one-hundred percent human."

"The testing scanners usually round to the nearest whole number. The Chiss genes just got thinned out over the course of a few thousand years, so it's more accurate to say you're at least ninety-nine-point-six percent human. But for all intents and purposes, you're human."

"Genetics is crazy." Zolph then had an aneurysm and started screaming.

"I wouldn't think about one of the jobs I took on Sleheyron if I were you."

"Easy for you to say. My gray matter's going to turn white if I keep being reminded of it!"

"Moving on, when I and the others followed Maesterus to Ockla Prime – the planet that would become the capital of the Valkoran Empire – in the Unknown Regions, Emilin came along with me. At the time the Valkoran Empire was starting up with just a few hundred former Republic citizens, Emperor Valkor was a charismatic figure. We didn't see him as the monster we know him as now.

But things fell apart a few years later when Valkor invited Masochus and his harassed apprentice – who you may know as Armogeist – from the hidden Sith Empire. We could sympathize with Armogeist, as Masochus constantly abused him and he only came along with Masochus because he was exiled from the Sith too for being Masochus's apprentice and was constantly intimidated him into doing what he wants.

However, it was at that time that Valkor's true motives became apparent to me and Emilin. We learned of this when we weren't supposed to and Masochus ratted Emilin out while I stayed hidden and escaped. I could only watch as she was forcefully possessed by Facadma, a high-ranking Archfiend that had been summoned secretly, Valkor's right-hand lackey in the Collective and rival to Belluzub. Now, Emilin's locked away while she's officially listed as having been killed in an accident.

Seeing Valkor for who he really was, I decided that I had to leave and plan a countermeasure against him. Seferin helped me – while I was still pregnant with his child - disappear in a way that would let Valkor turn a blind eye, because let's be honest, you can't leave the Valkoran that easily without becoming a target. And I spent almost the last few thousand years artificially extending my lifespan by sleeping in hidden cryotubes at different intervals of time, even changing and recycling identities every now and then, all just to make sure the Forceless Collective was destroyed eventually. And the last time I woke up from cryostasis was just in time for the Yuuzhan Vong to attack the galaxy.

If there are any psychological hardships I can admit enduring, it was outliving the galaxy I grew up and not seeing my son and other descendants grow up."

This was a lot for Zolph to absorb. "That's very rough. Cheating death must really suck if you know a lot of people that won't live as long as you. But how did you learn to liquefy your own body or parts of it with the Force?"

"Truth is it's actually a Force technique that Valkor picked up from another galaxy he conquered. He cannot use the Force, but he understands how it works."

"But why have you refused to teach me how to- ?"

"Because I didn't learn how to do it by choice. Valkor – at some point after having Emilin possessed and locked away, but before I left – forced me to learn it, and there's no room for error with this ability. Either you master it or you cause permanent damage to yourself. When I was first learning how to master it, I was stuck as an immobile puddle for two weeks before reforming my body and the only reason I didn't die from evaporation was because Valkor kept adding extra water to me every few hours. In short, I don't want to put you through the same hell I went through learning it."

"I understand. It would not only be terrifying, but it would be a real inconvenience if I crippled or killed myself trying to learn an ability that involves deconstructing the body."

"And now you know just about everything there is to know about me. So, what will you do now?"

Hiriss then gave her an answer. "Are you kidding? Who you were doesn't change anything."

Zolph backed up her answer. "What she said. You've been a wonderful ally since we first met, even if you were a bit of a pain sometimes. Besides, if it weren't for you, I would have either fallen to the Dark Side completely or killed myself by now. I'd be lying to myself if I said you weren't needed. In fact, you may have had a hand in planting the seeds of doubt within the Valkoran themselves."

Grein then accepted their remarks with a genuine smile. "I'm glad we're still on good terms after all that."

"Great! We've only got the Archfiend of Krishar left to deal with, and then we'll be finished with that list. But first, let's get back to Ossus, report to Luke and call it a day."