Chapter Twenty-Nine

When Jadus' forces finally noticed the enemy on their tail, Hyperion was halfway from the landing point Crassus chose to the Palace. They were valiant put up the best fight that Hyperion had seen yet, the Imperial Guard trained to deal with Imperial soldiers and Dark Lords alike. But they were ultimately no match during the first waves, the most likely reason for that being that Jadus hoped to make Hyperion and his forces exert themselves prematurely. However, they obeyed Crassus' orders to sustain the pace they possessed regardless of what was thrown at them until they had the Palace in their sights. The patience of the effort paid off when they finally arrived at the Palace and found that Jadus had barely managed to put together a respectable force upon their arrival.

Hyperion used his shield to minimize the Force power he expended towards surviving the brunt of Jadus' assault as did many of his soldiers. The Dark Lords who joined him in the assault even took a page from Darth Imperius and had cortosis shields they could use in a phalanx. Thus, Hyperion gathered them to the front lines and had them raise shields to protect the front lines from the uphail of lasers. Some of them even kept the shields when fighting the Imperial guard so as to give them an edge in combat against the best of the best. It was the fight of a lifetime, even for Hyperion who had been in more fights and battles than many of the Dark Lords at his side.

Still, he appreciated their steadfast loyalty to the cause that he and Crassus shared even if he knew they had lost either way. Once the Jedi launched their attack against them, it wouldn't matter what strides had been made to secure the unification of the Sith. Their efforts would be for naught and the Jedi would see to it that not one of them had a chance to conquer the galaxy again.

All Hyperion was going to get out of this was the expungement of his record in Republic Space as well as financial compensation to set him up for most of his life's remainder. It didn't seem like enough of a price to be offered him for what he was helping them do, not nearly the kind of healing price that could be paid for his peace of mind about this. At the end of the day, whether he preferred the corruptions and failings of the Republic, he was still killing innocents who simply knew no better than to serve the Sith cause. As he approached the steps, however, he sensed something unnatural occur that he knew the Dark Lords had at least somewhat sensed too. Like the life force of someone powerful had been stripped from them and used to feed a more powerful being with the strength to prevail in anything they set their mind to.

He shook it off as best he could and continued to press the assault, breaching the Imperial Palace where Jadus had barricaded himself within. Bringing down the front gates meant that Jadus' claim to the throne could now be questioned and the Imperial Guard would not be coming to save him anymore, not until he repelled the challengers himself. This made the work of the Lords under Hyperion easier and made Hyperion's job even easier than that in general, even with the uneasy feeling he'd had distracting him somewhat. Their way through the ranks of those who remained steadfast in their loyalty to Jadus became even easier than the work they'd had when the Guards were aiding the man who claimed the throne. Not since Malgus had they had reason to question the one they called Master even if they had failed to save Verrin from the Devils of Mustafar and were rumored to have aided the demise of Cideon among other feats.

"Lord Imperius," Hyperion began, choosing to call his grandfather by his host's name, "we have breached the Palace and await your arrival. Jadus is soon to be trapped with no way to escape, making him easy pickings for you."

"Very good," Crassus said, "I will have a shuttle readied to a flight down there at once." The sound of his voice was even more confident than it had previously been, almost in connection to the uneasy feeling that Hyperion had had before. He hadn't even needed his lightsabers yet by the time he reached the chambers of the man who proclaimed himself Emperor, at which point he'd also sensed Crassus on the verge of landing. He has come awfully fast, even for the pace needed to make this battle a success. Is it somehow connected to whatever I sensed earlier? Hyperion asked himself carefully.

They began bringing down the doors to the chambers when Crassus reported that he had landed and was on his way to face Jadus in fair combat. Hyperion, compelled forward by his obligation to the Empire, ordered his men to use all the remaining thermal detonators to create a big enough hole for troops to filter in. When they exploded, Hyperion was the first to step through the smoke, using Force Sight to search his way through until it cleared. After the others filed in, Jadus was awaiting them in the Emperor's chambers but there was no aura of anger, hatred, or any kind of emotion coming off him. It was almost as if he had anticipated this confrontation and had been preparing to fight the Emperor's Wrath for the right to rule the Sith. It would've been an impressive display of cunning if not for the fact that Hyperion wasn't going to challenge him.

"I must say I admire your form. You have outsmarted my soldiers at every turn, best my Dark Lords, and even intimidated the Imperial Guards out of helping me. Have you come to end my life as well?" Jadus asked.

"Your life will end," Hyperion admitted, "but not by my hands. I know I'm not powerful enough or skilled enough to defeat you but I know someone is. You remember Darth Imperius?" Then the man possessing Imperius' body entered the room, preparing for the fight that would end the feuding of the Sith. Jadus scanned his opponent over, sizing him for what was destined to become a fight for his life.

"No... this one carries Imperius' form but not his aura. This one is older, more powerful, and more conniving. Whoever you be, you are not the Lord Imperius that I knew!" Jadus snarled.

"You're very clever to have figured out that I am a Dark Side spirit who transferred his essence to Imperius then drained the Force power and life essence of Lady Nox. I could use such a brain as yours when I take over the Empire. Surrender, be my Voice," offered the Pau'an.

"And throw aside all the effort, years, and energy I have poured into this opportunity? Never!" Jadus exclaimed, finally succumbing to his pride in igniting his crimson lightsaber.

Chapter Thirty

When Jadus and Crassus ignited their blades, Hyperion thought over what Crassus had said about draining Nox's life and Force powers. Now, the sensation he felt before reaching the chambers made sense as did the feeling that Crassus' total Force power had grown exponentially. Crassus had never intended to let Nox lead any attempt to stop reinforcements that would never arrive in time to help Jadus. He merely wanted privacy as he fed on her life essence and broke her soul of any real power before vaporizing her body and casting her consciousness to oblivion. Crassus had done, on an individual scale, what was said to have been performed by Darths Nihilus and Vitiate.

This meant that he had combined the potential of two Dark Council members with the aura he had managed to gather over a century and half of life to make himself even stronger. How much more powerful, Hyperion wondered, could this man expect to get if he was allowed to live out the life of his Pau'an body and acquired another one at the right time? And how much longer did Crassus expect to live before he was ready to permanently embrace death? How much longer before he was satisfied enough to say that he was ready to die and ascend to the netherworld of the Force? Regardless, he watched as two masters of the Dark Side fought a ruthless battle for domination of the entire Sith Order, or what remained of it, anyway.

Jadus seemed to be a master of five of the seven lightsaber forms with Shii-Cho and Djem So being the only exception. Shien couldn't be readily displayed due to the fact it usually concerned itself with blaster bolts rather than lightsaber combat. Thus, that left Niman, Juyo, Ataru, Makashi, and Soresu as far as the traditional forms went. He also seemed to favor using the teleportation spell to offset Crassus' guards whenever he could. But Crassus was also a master of the forms and had likely experienced teleporters once or twice in his life before.

It showed when Jadus was unable to continue using teleportation to trick Crassus, who had not been tricked more than twice or thrice during the duel in any case. More to the point, Crassus was usually ready with a Soresu stance at each teleportation. This meant that Jadus would be forced to change tactics and both were beginning to realize they were close in skill with a lightsaber. So they began incorporating more Force powers into their blow, their Niman training permitting bouts of random Force Lighting being dispersed by either of them. Jadus also attempted to perform Dun möch on his opponent by throwing objects in the room at him but Crassus was clever.

He either countered by raising an object near him to meet the projectile coming at him, threw his own projectile to counter what Jadus hurled, or used the Force to send it back at him. It was becoming evident that Crassus was every bit as powerful as Jadus was, if not better than him. "You are skilled with a blade, strong in the Force, and slithery in speech. I could use someone like you in uniting the Sith to my cause if you would but surrender now. You needn't worry about losing everything you've worked for and you may even have another chance at it someday, Force willing," Crassus told him.

But Jadus ignored him and kept the fighting up, not giving into the temptation of what Crassus was offering him. He was, admitting there could be a time when Jadus would prove the stronger if he but surrendered now and the man had refused to take it. It was in moments like this that Hyperion reminded himself that patience was unusual amongst the Sith. Captivated by the physical realm and its limited bounties, the Sith were not known for waiting unless they knew they had time to spend. Vitiate might never have been a cautious man if he hadn't discovered the ritual that allowed him to consume Nathema after Marka Ragnos' verdict that he wait out the then-upcoming conflicts between Naga Sadow and Ludo Kressh.

The Sith were cunning beyond measure but without a semi-immortal leader to guide them otherwise, they would be impulsive, quick to temper, and easily swayed to their emotions. They would always think of themselves and grow egotistical in their pursuit of their desires as was the nature of the Dark Side. Jadus, a product of the Dark Side was proving that his comparatively limited lifespan was a handicap that stunted any real claim to being a patient man. Especially true this was when one compared him to Crassus, much less Vitiate and that was why Hyperion knew he was going to fail or be so severely weakened in winning Hyperion could easily kill him.

But Hyperion knew that the latter outcome was unlikely to occur, not unless Crassus somehow grew too prideful of imminent victory to keep his head on straight. Knowing his grandfather, that mistake was unlikely to occur and Jadus sealed the deal when he tried a bout of his most powerful Force Lightning application, followed by another teleportation. Crassus absorbed it all with ease, taking its power within himself and amplifying five-fold from what Hyperion could sense with the aid of Force Sight. Then when Jadus meant to charge him head on, having shot his Lightning from his right flank before teleportation, Crassus released it back. The result was a storming volley of electricity so bright and blinding that Hyperion was forced to turn away.

In one hand, Crassus had not only produced the kind of storm associated with Vitiate in his Zakuulan form known as Valkorion but produced red lightning to that degree. Jadus was dead before he could roll to the ground and slump to his back, his armor and mask melted and fused to his body from the searing heat of the bolts ripping through his pitiful defenses. The entire duel had taken less than three minutes to come to its brutal end and when it was over, the entirety of the Sith Empire that remained found itself bowing before the man they called Imperius. Even Hyperion, who would be subordinate as the Emperor's Wrath, bowed before his grandfather until the man called him to his side.

"Darth Jadus has refused to let go of what meager fruits came of his successes as a Sith Lord. He has disgraced himself in surrendering to his ego and has dishonored the Dark Side in a manner that could only be amended by his death. Now, the Sith are again unified but we are too weak to sustain our holdings on Balmorra or Dathomir. Recover for a day then we will begin to prepare for the departure of our remnants into a place where the Jedi will not reach us until we are ready! Dismissed all," Crassus declared, asking Hyperion to stay with him for a bit. When everyone was gone, he spoke his mind with his grandson about what was to come.

"Be fortunate that I have not spoken of your original purpose in coming here to them. If they were to discover you were a mole of the Jedi who ascended the ladder of power too fast for his own good, they would skin you and hang your bones to dry before you could think. However, there is still a possibility of pardon from your original intention: swear utter fealty to me and the Sith cause and I will let you live to share in the glory to come," Crassus told him.

"I can counter with how you were once killed by a half-trained Sith warrior and his band of Jedi outcasts in the Hapes Cluster. The Sith may not like their members to be caught with treachery but they abhor weakness of any sort. If you want me to step into the light and fess up, we're stepping into that light together, grandfather. Think you can live with those consequences?" Hyperion replied.

"I could simply destroy you now then release the information I have on you since it comes straight from your head and unto their data screens. They will know of how you trained Verrin's sons to fail so that your mission for the Republic would be a success and deliberately allowed the engines of war to tear the Empire apart to minimize damage to the Jedi fleets! Is that your wish, grandson?" Crassus demanded. Hyperion merely looked his grandfather in the eye as he slowly backed away from him.

"You do what you think you have to do, Crassus. It's all any of us can do even when the decisions hurt us like the burns of a lightsaber cut," Hyperion told him. He continued to retreat away from Crassus and even turned his back to him to march out to help with the preparations for the retreat. Crassus called out to him in his new Pau'an voice, repeating his commands until Hyperion finally stopped. When the younger and smaller human turned to face his senior lord once again, Crassus spoke out with a booming voice.

"You could've been the greatest of the Sith at one time, Hyperion Corialanus Algethii. In your life, you have displayed brutality, treachery, guile, cunning, skill, ambition, and power capable of making greatness from conquest. Yet you have langored in a squalor borne from the guilt of what you rightly claimed for yourself, you let yourself be haunted by the effect your actions had on others rather than embracing that you had that effect on those people! You were so much more than what you are now when you were young and now you have thrown it all away," Crassus told him.

"If power and prestige can only come by stepping on the backs of other people, I want none of it. I want known of the gifts the Dark Side can offer me, no more than I already possess," Hyperion replied calmly.

"Precisely your sin was that you always lacked ambition that others did not encourage. I can deal with ambitious men, they can be persuaded and bought but a man who only wants to live and let live is no use to me," Crassus said.

"And precisely your weakness is that you are a one-hundred and fifty year old child, unable to realize that death will ensnare him sooner or later. Unable to believe it possible that death can someday come for him. When the Jedi arrive, Dantius and I will be fighting side by side to make sure you die and stay dead this time," Hyperion hissed before marching off to keep himself busy with the others.