Chapter Four

"Dad, will my bow really be effective against our enemies?" Menelaus asked, entering Hyperion's perspective as soon as the vision of Clymene disappeared.

"No, that's what the pistols are for but the principles of targeting, aiming, and firing are essentially the same. Learn the bow and it'll be even easier to learn the blaster, easier to utilize it in combat against the enemies who will stop at nothing to kill us," Hyperion admitted. Menelaus nodded but then asked the next most important question.

"How can I get good without targets to practice on?" he asked.

"I have an idea," Hyperion answered. He then raised several rocks of smooth roundular design and explained the nature of this exercise. "They're going to move so that it gets difficult for you to shoot them down. But for now, focus on just shooting them first and when you get good at it, the challenge will begin," he added after a moment.

Menelaus did his best but was only successful at hitting two of the targets and grazing another with the feathers. "It is not important that you be good right away but that you become good when it counts. Shooting rocks is nothing when compared to the ability to take a life, even in defense of yourself," Hyperion told him.

"Is that why you spared the soldier who came to our house?" Menelaus continued.

"It is," Hyperion admitted, "but his death served less purpose to us than his survival did as well. Alive, he may come after us again but we can plead self-defense if we're captured by his superiors. That I had given him every warning to leave our home through both my destruction of his weapons and verbal articulation."

"And if superiors don't care about that?" asked the boy.

"Well, the government they answer to is famous for its corruption so that isn't an impossible outcome. That is why after we disperse your mother's ashes in Dathomir, we'll make a break for uncharted space that the Republic doesn't control. If my suspicions about the fall of the Sith Empire are correct, the last thing we want is to stay on Dathomir any longer than we need to," Hyperion confessed.

"But if he comes for us again, we'll kill him right?" Menelaus asked.

"Do not be so quick to thirst for blood when you have not even felt it coursing through your hands yet as I have. Never seek battle when you have yet to experience the hell of combat and the torments of protecting your life at the cost of someone else's. And never think you can kill for sport because you've seen me do it: I am hardened to the ways of the universe where you are still malleable, impressionable," Hyperion warned. At that moment, he saw something he hoped he wouldn't see for some time yet, something that signaled an acceleration to their journey was needed. The son of a kath hound has activated his distress beacon Hyperion said, noticing the green beam that headed straight up from where the soldier had fallen.

"What's that?" Menelaus asked, pointing out the same green beam.

"Our cue to head for the mountains a little faster than we already are and get as far into the heart of the range as we possibly can. The more ground they have to cover, the better our chances of reaching a ship that can take us to Dathomir," Hyperion said.

"So we're going to Dathomir!? We're gonna disperse my mother's ashes at its highest mountain?" Menelaus asked excitedly.

"We are, we don't have a lot of options besides."

"Then why are we going into the mountains?"

"To lead away our pursuers or dissuade them from continuing the search without any violence. Once we've got them off our tail, we'll make a break for the nearest spaceport out of here," Hyperion declared. Menelaus tried to get up but soon fell on his hands and knees, likely from a charlie horse in his leg. Hyperion scooped him up with ease and slung him over one shoulder whilst carrying his pack with the other.

"I'm sorry, I'm so weak!" Menelaus cried.

"No, you were kneeling too long and I didn't tell you that you needed to get up. You had no way of knowing that was gonna happen. Plus your species has a higher pain tolerance than almost any other humanoid so you might not have even known you had one growing for that reason. But I am not leaving you behind and you have my word boy, if you should ever be abducted, I'll hunt down the people who abducted you and make them release you or make them suffer," Hyperion promised as he carried Menelaus toward their destiny. After slinging the backpack onto his shoulder, he removed a blaster pistol from its holster in case he needed to use it going forward then began the hike forward to the stone guardians of Ando Prime.

While Hyperion and Menelaus began their journey to the mountain range, the other members of Havoc Squad were arriving at the coordinates of the distress signal. Altogether, there were six total members kept in the squadron though eight more could be called back into service if needed. The leader of the Squad was a grizzled old Cather who'd seen the wars of the Jedi, Sith, and even rise of the Zakuul Eternal Empire. But because it wasn't quite eternal as it promised to be, even the succeeding Eternal Alliance eventually fell apart. Gaining the greater share of the technology of the fallen Zakuul people, the Republic had driven the Sith halfway across creation.

Since then squads had either been disbanded or temporarily suspended on paid leave. The reinstated Havoc Squad, due to their skills at staying alive and doing what they were sent to do, stayed functioning. But even they had more than half their members on paid honorable leave with exception noted to its most seasoned members. Major Aric Jorgan, a former member of the Eternal Alliance, had recruited the best of the best from that army. But when the Alliance started to crumble due to the infighting of the Sith and Jedi within it, he rejoined the Republic in the hopes that he could get his name cleared by aiding them in destroying Zakuul.

In the years since those depressing days of his life as a soldier, he'd only grown harder than he had already been reputed to be when he first took command. Nonetheless, the years of peace had been kinder on his squad than he would've liked which was why he only assigned those most vigilant and ready for conflict to remain on his active roster. Such was the case with a Twi'lek named Chen, who'd joined in the waning days of the war against the Sith and the Eternal Alliance. At the time, Aric had been impressed with his martial prowess in hand to hand combat and made him the man to go to whenever new recruits needed weapons or martial training in general. So to find him lying broken and flat on his back in the snow like this wasn't a good sign of what they were up against.

"What the hell happened Chen?" he asked at once.

"I found him, I found the man we were looking for. Then he... he..." the Twi'lek began. He didn't need to finish for Major Jorgan to understand what'd happen here. Still, he looked over the recordings of Chen's live feed for the answers he sought in case he was wrong. As soon as he did, he had all the confirmation he needed that the man they were looking for was attuned to the Force... that or just really kriffing good at fistfighting.

But the move of Echani takedown he saw, the takedown that likely kept Chen pinned in the snow like this, confirmed his suspicion of the former rather than the latter. "Get him a kolto pack then make an immediate evac back to the gunship. We're gonna need to reevaluate how we fight this guy," he ordered.

"Pull back when he's retreating!? No sir!" Chen demanded as two more squad members carried him back.

"He wouldn't kick your ass as thoroughly as he did and then retreat because of fear. No ordinary human can hit that hard and that fast plus he's got knowledge of the land that we don't. There's no way I'm risking any of my men against him until I know the ground is at least somewhat equal or in our favor. For that to be the case, we're gonna need some help... some Jedi help," Major Jorgan said.

"Why not just let him go then? We're famous for doing our work without the aid of the Jedi or not doing it at all!" Chen hissed.

"It's prey like this that's always the best to catch plus this guy's got rap sheets with both sides that's longer than a Hutt. We let him go for any longer than we've already done, he ain't ever gonna know accountability. I'm wiring the footage from your live feed to someone who knows this one, someone who can help us beat him. Maybe even talk him into surrender before there's any actual bloodshed on anyone's part," Major Jorgan said. He wasn't about to lose another trooper the way he lost his predecessors and the mates he'd bunked with on the transports that carried him to and from missions, not if he had a choice in it.

In addition to being Force-sensitive and an incredible boxer, this guy was armed to the teeth and knew every millimeter of the forest and the nearby mountains. As soon as he got to the mountains especially, they'd have no chance of catching him or finding out what that kid was doing with him. He'd better not have taken a hostage to raise as his own or else he's gettin even less mercy from me and my team Jorgan promised as he transmitted the footage with an encoded message to the one Jedi he knew would aid them.

Chapter Five

There is no death... there is only the Force. This Dantius Octavian had known for many years, ever since he was first recruited by Jedi Master Ra from the pits of slavery. Now, a Jedi Master with a successfully trained Padawan under his belt, he sat in contemplation on the restored temple on Dantooine. Yet the vision of his past, the one of his own brother hanging him by the wrists and preparing to butcher him like a piece of cattle meat. Immediately after it happened, eleven years ago, the visions had been especially horrible during the first two or three years. Yet as his mind recomposed itself, the visions faded until as recently as the last five standard months or so: otherwise, he hadn't them resurface in six years.

For reasons he could never understand, the visions were resurfacing and in the last month had intensified. There is no death... Dantius told himself, finding what comfort could be found in the words of the Jedi Order's wise Code. "Master Dantius?" interjected a familiar voice. It was his former Padawan, a year into his new career as a Jedi Knight of the Republic.

"Knight Polydeuces, it seems that the active role you play in Jedi affairs is quite in agreement with you! What brings you into my path once more?" Dantius asked.

"I intercepted a transmission encoded so that only you are allowed access. It's got a voice recognition contingency for good measure," he said. He then handed Dantius the chip with the transmission encoded within it so that Dantius might use it. Cracking the code, Dantius broke the additional encryptions which confirmed that it was an elite Special Forces Division squadron, specifically Havoc Squad. In the live feed he saw, a bald and pale-skinned man was using fist blows imbued with the Force for added speed and knuckledusters for added damage.

The man had a beard that completely colored the lower half of his face, he was older in general but Dantius recognized him because of his eyes and frame. There was no mistaking that the visions he'd been experiencing had risen because the Force was trying to tell him that Hyperion still lived. His brother... the brother who tried to kill him, eleven years ago, and with him take one more in his wake. Impossible he thought.

"Master? Is everything alright?" asked Polydeuces but he barely heard him.

"My brother..." Dantius said, distantly thinking aloud, "how can he be alive after all these years?" When Hyperion had been defeated, the Jedi Council member had utterly humiliated and severely injured him with the kind of blows Dantius didn't think even his Force Rage could save him from.

"Master? I didn't even know you had a brother," Polydeuces admitted.

"I buried that part of my past when I came back to Dantooine. When we last fought, he had captured me and a Jedi named Coventry so that he could slowly butcher us over entire standard weeks with his blade. I threw him down a shaft with the Force when he tried to stab Master Forseti from behind after being utterly humiliated by him... there's no way he should be alive," Dantius explained.

"Unless the Force willed it so for some purpose we have yet to divine from it?" Polydeuces offered.

"Possible but why him?" Dantius demanded. "Never mind, I know someone who might want to tag along. Someone who said he'd seen some good in my brother before he disappeared from Nar Shaddaa."

"Nar Shaddaa? The gang world and who?" asked Polydeuces.

"A certain Nautolan we both know, my friend. Said Nautolan was a friend of mine even before he met Hyperion and released a full report about his exploits with Hyperion and the Weequay Seth al Ugolio. Name ain't ringing a bell yet?" Dantius replied.

"Inoy!? But last I heard, he was helping his native planet of Glee Anselm with a dispute of territory between its species," Polydeuces said.

"He was but returned less than a standard week ago. Odds are, he'll probably be an important intermediary in this mission to track down and bring in my brother," Dantius said.

"Actually, wouldn't it be better if you didn't go at all? Your personal connection to him may make you all the more susceptible to the Dark Side if he uses it against you," Polydeuces asked. From a tactical standpoint, he may be right but the signal was originally given to me for decoding Dantius thought. Aloud, he shrugged and admitted that it couldn't hurt for Polydeuces and Inoy to work a little more closely together for a little while.

"Let me contact him and get you two underway. He knows Hyperion almost as well as I do so you will be in good hands for the journey ahead. I'll coordinate things with Major Jorgan on the side while you two work in the field as it were," Dantius offered.

"You sure you need three Jedi? Two Masters and a Knight, no less?" Polydeuces asked.

"Not to worry, I will not take to the battlefield unless I absolutely have to. You and Inoy should be more than enough for Hyperion at this point in our lives," Dantius said. He knew it was possible that Hyperion had forsworn the lightsaber or at least mistrusted his skills with it if the footage was indication. When they were much younger, it was the first and only weapon Dantius ever expected to see but the man in the footage?

The man in the footage had a whip, spear, shield, ax, shurikens, two blaster pistols, and a knuckleduster so that his flesh hand might be amplified to similar strength as his artificial one. More important, it also looked like he had some of the latest in portable laser field generation technology and the kind that was known for either incinerating its target or shredding them into several sticky pieces like a Sith's lightsaber, depending on how cruel the user felt. Then there was the matter of the little Zabrak boy with the bow and arrows that Hyperion had probably fashioned for him. Was Dantius deluding himself when he heard the boy called Hyperion his dad?

Had Hyperion truly taken a child under his wing after his defeat at the hands of Master Forseti, Coventry, and Dantius? If so, what did he hope to gain with this kid and what did it have to do with putting away his old armor and lightsaber? Was Hyperion hoping that by raising this child, maybe he could begin to wash the blood that stained his hands for so many years of his life? How had Hyperion sunk so low that he thought adopting someone else's child would help him begin to mend the sins of his past?

"Master Octavian, shall I send for Inoy now?" asked Polydeuces. Dantius nodded and fell to a chair to think about what he was seeing. He himself still used Teräs Käsi as his preferred martial arts style but it was clear that Hyperion had at least retained expertise in his own Echani variant. It was also clear that even if he wasn't using a lightsaber anymore, he still retained an ability to pick it up and wield it if the smoothness of his spear wielding in the recorded moments of his escape served as evidence. His grip alone suggested that he had been practicing, whether or not that had meant taking out and using his lightsaber blade once more.

He also noticed that Hyperion also still commanded enough Force powers to slice the rifle in half with his shuriken then trigger a thermal detonator remotely. This was going to be a dangerous time for Polydeuces and Inoy which made it fortunate the latter was a veteran of war. More to the point, the kid was still young and very much in his prime, capable of taking the battle to Hyperion as easily as Polydeuces could. Dantius could then keep to his tactical experience with facing down his older brother.

The only question that remained would be how to convince the Council it was necessary to bring him in. All records showed that Hyperion had never served any real time with the Empire beyond being a blade for hire. More to the point, even though he was aligned to the Dark Side, he had not been formally recognized as a Sith Warrior in any way of significance. Perhaps if Dantius played up the fact that Hyperion would be the next best threat in the wake of the Sith Empire's downfall in combination to his rap sheet? Hyperion was a criminal of the Republic whether or not he had been officially acknowledged as a Sith Lord.

It was also worth noting that because he survived the attempt he made on Dantius' life and had tried to attack one of Dantius' superiors, his criminality was felonious. Then there was that boy: unless he could prove that Hyperion had kidnapped and brainwashed him, the Council wouldn't let him do anything to remove the Zabrak child from Hyperion's custody. On top of that, where would the boy be reassigned if it turned out that he wasn't Force-sensitive? What would the Council think about assigning him into their ranks if it turned out that he was indeed Force-sensitive in any way?

If assigned to either the Temple for safekeeping or turned over to a trusted foster family, could he in turn be trusted not to come back for revenge against the Order? Could he perhaps be swayed to testify that he had been kidnapped in exchange for a lesser sentence if he had caused anyone's death or full pardon if his hands were clean? Hyperion's return into this plane of existence created far too many questions for Dantius to safely navigate them all at the moment. All he could do was trust that the Force had the answers and it would reveal them to him when the time was right.

But if Hyperion was alive, what did it say of the presence of the Dark Side in this galaxy? Was it possible that servants of the Dark Side like those who wielded greater power than Hyperion still lived? Most of all, why would it choose Hyperion to reveal that, if so?