AN: Sorry that this is taking longer than usual. School just started for me, and it's getting more and more crazy. Things will probably start coming a little slower. Not stopping though, never. There's a little angry voice in my head that shrieks every time it thinks I'm taking too long.

Anyways, to HK Target Shooter, I hope you enjoy the Theron Fel in this chapter. I know it's not much, but bear with me. He'll pop up some more throughout Leon's story. I think Theron is a pretty fun character with a good moral compass, even as a Sith... or whatever he was.

Enjoy

Two Months Before Revan's Death

Theron Fel walked silently down the brightly lit corridor. Coruscant's capital district in summer, outside at least, was hot. The heat from the sun was reflected a thousand times by the sprawling ecumenopolis, threatening heatstroke on any that dawdled too long outside of copious shade. In his black, armored robes, Revan was hard pressed – even inside and using his intensely powerful Force abilities – to stay conscious. That was, of course, nothing to say of the three-warrior entourage he had brought with him to the planet. Those Sith and Imperial Knights did not have the tech Theron had built into his armor over the past eighteen months to keep him at a comfortable temperature at all times, a design actually based on the one within his mask.

"Why are we even here?" Revan's closest bodyguard asked. Revan turned his gaze on the man, who froze for a moment. Most Sith were still accustomed to Nihl's ancient tactic of 'murder anyone who fails or questions you.' Doesn't exactly help one's army learn from its mistakes. "My Lord?"

Revan laughed to himself and turned away from his retinue. "I honestly wondered the same myself when I received the message, Frius. Laughing in their face, killing them quickly," Revan replied finally. The Triumvirate had sent Theron Fel himself a pleading message of fear. They desperately wanted to make peace with the man they had created from suffering. Theron's first thought had been to ignore the begging, perhaps revel in it before refusing and tearing the bloated system he so despised to the ground. But that would be stupid. "But that would be stupid. The Triumvirate has its uses, for now." Revan continued walking towards the location of the peace treaty.

"What do you mean, my Emperor?" one of the nearby Knights asked.

"There are worse things in this galaxy than a corrupt system, Griffus. Than even the Jedi," Revan replied, still walking. "And the Triumvirate may be indispensable as a barrier until I have a foolproof strategy to overcome said evil." Revan's boots clacked against the tile within the Senate hallways.

"But this could be a trap, my Lord," Frius said again. His voice burned with desire for battle.

Revan began to reply, but the third member of his guard laughed once. "I think," she said, "the Lord expects that."

Revan laughed once. "Indeed Knight Jana." Theron grinned behind his mask. "But it shows strength, that we are better, if we are willing to entertain the notion they believe in peace. A betrayal will only cause more to flock to our banner."

"If we survive," Jana pointed out. Revan laughed and nodded his head in agreement. "Boss, you're being careful, right? Anyone can get lucky. I don't want some two bit padawan with a yellow lightsaber doing you in."

Theron smiled and shook his head. "I am well aware of the risks. Marching into the center of my enemies' nest of lies and power is... bold, I suppose," he said. He clasped his hands behind his back as he walked. The air conditioning in the hall began to pick up, and Revan used his abilities to aid his guards. "But fortune favors the bold, eh?"

"Or it kills them," Griffus deadpanned. Revan laughed again. The Imperial Knights were much more fun to be around than their Sith counterparts.

The group stopped with Revan as they neared the room in which the treaty would be signed. "Of course it's here," the Sith Lord grumbled, quieter than his underlings could hear. It was the same room, deep within the Senate Chambers, where he and his crew had been briefed by the former Triumvirs what felt like a lifetime ago. He raised his hand to the door control and the durasteel plate slid open. "Gentlemen." Revan's eyes glanced over the faces of all present. His eyes narrowed behind his mask as his gaze fell on one woman's face. The Grandmaster of the Jedi noted Theron's response – that there was one really – to the woman he was staring at."Ladies..."

The woman shook her head and her hair hung like a curtain before her eyes. She looked... oddly familiar to Revan. He laughed and clapped his hands as it hit him. "Ana! Wow, I couldn't recognize you with the hunched shoulders and terrible hair!" he shouted, drawing light laughter from his retinue. He thought he heard Jana begin to call the broken woman before them a stupid Schutta. Revan immediately raised his hand, cutting off Jana halfway through her first syllable. "Oof, that whole smelly nature kissed look the Jedi go for doesn't really cut it for you, does it? Not like the together, supermodel look I'm used to."

The woman shook with rage, but didn't respond. "Enough, Revan," the Chancellor, an angry Bothan woman, said. Obviously, their bet that Ana would unbalance Theron had backfired miserably. "We came here to discuss peace, not trade barbs."

"I sincerely doubt that," Frius stated. He stood with his hands on his hips, close to his saber, always wavering just within reach of the weapon. It made the new Grandmaster and Grand Moff nervous, along with their bodyguards.

"Now now, no need to threaten just yet, Frius," Revan placated. His saber hung from his hip, far from the hands that he placed on the blue skinned Chiss' shoulders. Revan turned his gaze back towards the Triumvirs. "Unfortunately, my friend and I seem to be in agreement. You aren't here for peace, are you?"

The heads of the Triumviracy stood like statues, none willing to answer. "Really? That's the best you can all do? And I thought you were the best politicians in the galaxy... since I killed your predecessors, of course," Revan laughed. He took his hands from Frius' shoulders. "Peace will be like this. To me the Moffs will hand all power over the Empire to which they wrongfully cling. Half of Coruscant – from the Palace eastward – will become part of my Empire. Any who cling to the Moffdom will be given one chance to return to the fold... after that, they will be traitors, subject to my authority. I have other conditions, ones I will be glad to go over should you decide not to pop the poorly hidden ambush within this room, that we can talk about as we put the treaty in writing. If not... the Triumvirate will fall by my hand. Choose..."

In response, twenty-eight Jedi erupted from the shadows to kill Revan. "Poor choice," Revan said as he ignited his lightsaber.

Fifteen of the Jedi rushed towards the Sith Lord, including the Grandmaster. Revan laughed at how they underestimated him and crossed blades with his small army of enemies. Revan's armor allowed him to ignore the influx of frost that flew from Frius' clawed hand. Revan had fostered those abilities – the Sith was the greatest Force Cryokinetic, perhaps the only one, that Revan had ever seen. The Jedi were not so lucky, with shards of ice slashing through exposed skin. Frius' five, closest to the blizzard fell easily.

Jana and Griffus' opponents quickly fell to the twins' incredible joint attack. Jana had great skill with a lightsaber, but with the Force she was an artist. She could craft illusions within the minds of her enemies, making them question everything. This left them wide open to the attacks of her brother, a duelist second only to Revan himself and Revan's own apprentice.

Yes, the three of Revan's bodyguards were intense warriors with powerful abilities and unbreakable wills. Each of them would be formidable opponents, even to the Dark Lord himself. None, even together could defeat him, of course, but there was no reason to argue that point. The three were undyingly loyal to their master, each tied to him through Force bonds crafted through time spent together as friends. Master and Apprentices.

As the last of Revan's opponents fell to the ground, none fatally wounded, he shook his head and sighed. "I'm very disappointed in you," he said, still shaking his head. He deactivated his lightsaber and looked down at the Grandmaster – a Korun male – and Ana next to him. Revan clapped his hands again and two small camera droids appeared out of thin air. The uninjured Moff and Chancellor's eyes widened. "But this was expected. So I televised the event." Revan grabbed one of the cameras and dragged it towards his mask. "Marien, sorry it's taking so long. See you soon." With that, Revan, his droids, and his bodyguards disappeared in a flash of white light to a location in Kaas City half a galaxy away.

SWSWSWSWSW

"Wake up! Wake up, dammit!" a woman's voice shouted. Leon grunted and shut his eyes harder, trying to stave off the painful light of the waking world. He felt a fist collide with his side and he grunted. "Wake the kark up!"

"What is it, Tarav-" Leon's eyes drifted open and the memories of the past day rushed back to him. He took a deep breath and sighed it out. "Right... Where are we?"

Erea shook her head and groaned. "Okay, right now we're squatting in an apartment in the midlevels... of Coruscant."

Leon stared at Erea, dumbfounded. "H-how did we cross the galaxy?"

"We drifted into the Triumvirate Fleet's Hyperspace radius. They dragged us with them when they fled the Taris system," Erea explained. She walked over to Leon, who noticed he was shirtless, and unwrapped a bandage. "You're all healed up. The escape pod wasn't designed for free floating light speed, so it malfunctioned and plummeted down here as soon as we entered orbit. Crash webbing was the only thing that saved us. You were already pretty injured, but the crash really banged you up. You were almost dead. Barely got us to this empty apartment complex before the Triumvirates found the pod."

Leon cursed to himself. "So the planet's on lockdown," he said. "Dammit..." Leon looked up at Erea. "Good job saving me. I'm Leon."

Naga smiled. "Thanks for the name."

Leon grinned and shrugged. "Eh, you saved me twice. I think I can trust you," he responded. He unwrapped one of the bandages on his arm. He had no shirt on. "Now, where's my uniform?" Leon looked up at Erea and frowned. "Where's your uniform?"

Erea scoffed and picked up Leon's undersuit from the ground. "Did you really think I'd let either of us run around in Sith battle armor?" she asked, rolling her eyes and looking at Leon. "I got us some normal clothes so we can blend in."

"How do you know my si-" Leon shook his head. As he unwrapped another bacta-soaked bandage on his left forearm, he said, "Right, never mind." Leon shot up, tossing around violently. "Where is it?! Dammit, do we still have it?!"

"What?" Erea asked. She dropped the undersuit and looked around.

"The drive. It contains all the information from the Fel's systems, and I was ordered to get it back to the Empire. Whatever's on it... it's what the Trirals were after," Leon shouted, still burrowing around. He jumped off the bed – he was not completely indecent, thankfully – and began rummaging around on the ground. "I... I need to get it back! I need to... kill whoever took it."

"Whoa, calm down," Erea said. She grabbed Leon's shoulder and pulled him up from the ground to face her. "You didn't have a drive on you when we got here. If you had one, it must have fallen out of your armor."

"Dammit!" Leon screamed. He slammed his fist into the wall, shattering the plaster and causing Erea to flinch.

"I'm sorry," Erea hissed.

Leon groaned. "I know, I'm just... Sorry," Leon said finally. Erea tossed him clothes, and he caught the crumpled ball of cloth. Leon zipped himself into his undersuit again, comforted – at least a little – by the hum of the magnetic field around him. As he pulled on the gray cargo pants with red and white stripes running vertically down the outer side of either pant leg, he continued to speak. "The CO of my unit, he ordered me to hold onto it until I got it back to the Empire. I won't take failing him." Leon pulled a tan-white button up over his shoulders and a black vest left open above that. He tucked the pants into a pair of black boots on the floor.

"I heard only good things about Captain Tarava," Erea said placatingly. She was wearing a brown bantha-leather jacket over a loose white shirt with the black silhouette of a nexu on it. Brown pants and boots. "He was a good soldier."

Leon sat down on the bed again and shook his head. "He was a good man."

The room was quiet for some time. Finally, Leon stood up with a grunt. "Well, we need a plan to get off this rock. A ship, credits... the drive. Kriff,"

"We've got our work cut out for us, I agree," Erea replied. She tossed the deactivated vibrosword to Leon and strapped twin blasters to her legs. Leon picked up the lightsaber and clipped it to his belt – it wasn't built to maglock like most other weapons. He probably wouldn't get a chance to use it, after all he'd probably hurt himself more than he'd hurt any possible opponent. "But you're special forces – I think we can manage, right?"

Leon smiled and began to respond, but froze as he heard a scream. "Are there other people living here?" he asked, his vibrosword at the ready.

Erea nodded. "The complex is full of families, human and alien. Something must be happening!"

Leon nodded and rushed out of the door, freezing in disgust at the sight before him. Two sapients – Leon couldn't identify what species – were standing over a pair of Duros, waving their blasters threateningly at the prone blue aliens. The attackers had... skin, somewhere, but it was all concealed by threatening and painful looking gray spikes that curved out from every inch of visible flesh. The location of where the eyes should have been was just as covered in the spines as the arms, face, chest and so on. "Vongspores..." Leon gasped to himself.

Darth Krayt, and indeed many others, in the past two centuries had fallen victim to Vong spores. Krayt's Empire had even spread them throughout the Republic's attempted reconstructionist worlds, causing countless settlers to sprout the painful spines and suffer through agonizing pain. Republic and Jedi collapsed for a while after that. Triumvirate supposedly cured everyone affected when it came into being. This... said otherwise. "What the kark are you doing!?" Leon snapped at the Vong-affected criminals.

The twisted psychos glanced up at Leon and Erea, then back at the Duros. "You letting new people in here without paying the tithe!?" one of the monsters asked. A blaster bolt flew from its hands, killing one of the Duros. The other Duros clutched at its fallen kin, screaming. "You don't cross the Red Vong and live, stoopa!"

As one of the Red Vong raised their blaster again, Leon roared and rushed forward. His vibrosword slashed through the wrist of the self-mutilative gang member. The Red Vong member screeched angrily, and a mass of Vong Spore tendrils rushed out of the gaping wound. "This isn't how Vong Spore is supposed to work!" Leon screamed as the tendrils hardened into a blade and slashed at him. He blocked the incoming attack with his vibrosword and glanced over his shoulder at Erea, who was dodging the other Vong's blaster fire. "What the kriff is going on here!?"

"Damned if I know!" Erea replied as she fired another blast, uselessly, into the Vong's chest. "We're not going to last long if we don't figure this out, though."

"Agreed," Leon replied. He deflected another Vong-blade blow, and gasped in surprise as the tendrils of Vong Spore roped around the weapon. The cortosis weave blade was torn out of Leon's hands and clattered uselessly against the wall. "Kriff... Could use some help!"

"Yeah, so could I!" Erea replied. Leon didn't look back, but from the tone of her voice it was clear that this fight was not looking good for them. Leon growled. He couldn't just die now. He moved past the next attack of the Red Vong member and grabbed the gangster by the throat. Moments later, the twisted sapient crashed into the wall, the spines on his skin sticking between the durasteel slabs. Barely, of course.

The Red Vong, incensed and frothing at the mouth now, screamed and rushed towards Leon, bladed arm swinging violently. Leon struggled to weave around the blows, but each one rushed towards him faster and faster. Leon could only barely stay alive. He hoped to the Force for something to save him. And something did. Leon was incredibly surprised as the Red Vong's head was suddenly separated from his shoulders. "Damn cultists," a woman's voice came. Leon looked at a Chiss woman slightly shorter than he with deep black hair that rested short on her face. Her red eyes were deep with annoyance. She walked past Leon, a vibrosword in her hand. The blade arced through the neck of the other Red Vong, and his head also rolled across the ground. The woman smiled at Erea for a moment, then turned back to Leon. "Now, where was -"

The Chiss woman froze. She blinked and breathed out. She struggled for breath, as if she was surprised. "Y-you..."

"Yes, miss..?" Lucius began. Erea stood silent.

The woman's mouth shut. "You just look like someone I used to know," the Chiss said. She shook her head and sighed. "Um... Hi. I'm Marien. Are you related to Theron Fel?"