Chapter Five

Thanks to Morgause learning none of Hyperion's skills and vice versa, both managed to surprise each other with their fluidity, dexterity, and aggression against Lord Crassus. But Crassus soon proved that he found a viable body to prove their superiors in saber combat and Force powers, at least if they had fought him alone. That noted, they noticed that Crassus was mostly on the defensive side of lightsaber combat and seemed not to be channeling his Force powers into an attack. "From beyond life, at the edge of oblivion, I call to a spirit of vengeance to rise forth and take revenge against the one who destroyed it. Morgana L'étoile Brilliante, I call to you to rise within Hyperion and claim both his body and mind for your own," Crassus said, a black and silver fire forming on his left hand as he raised it up and pointed the knuckles in Hyperion's direction.

In that moment, Hyperion remembered he still had the wrist blade that he could shoot from his gauntlet and when he did, he released it within moments of Crassus snapping his fingers. Just as the black pulse exploded and the field enveloped Hyperion, the blade embedded itself into Crassus with a sound of torn cloth and cut flesh, the projectile sawing its way through bone. Hyperion fell over once the pulse touched him and Morgause looked on with shock at the very idea her father could be so easily brought down.

"What did you do to him?" Morgause demanded.

"Exactly as I said you'd be capable of doing if you had exercised the right. I called forth Morgana from beyond oblivion to take over Hyperion's body and mind in a final effort for revenge. Had you had the spine for it, you would've been able to call upon it then finish him off if he triumphed over her. But now, its only use to me is in ending this fight quickly to pursue more important goals," Crassus told her.

"I won't fall that easily," Morgause hissed.

"No, you are your father's daughter. You fall won't be easy or painless for that matter. But I have greater goals to fulfill than destroying you at the moment so for now, I'll postpone this engagement," Crassus told her. Morgause replied with a bout of Force Lightning so powerful it should not have come from someone as young as her, let alone from each hand. Even with this noted, Crassus easily absorbed it with one hand and in the midst of doing so, Morgause picked up her father's lightsaber to fight with beside the one she took from him already. As she ignited both blades, Crassus shot the lightning back at her from the same hand, marching backward toward his shuttle as she deflected her own bolts with the lightsabers.

By the time she was able to fight against, Crassus had reached the shuttle and spoke before boarding. "You have a choice, Morgause. Stay by your father and kill Morgana if she wins or pursue me and risk losing your father to her or to someone coming from among the Imperial Guards. Your choice woman," he said. Morgause lowered her lightsabers in hesitation, realizing that he had backed her into a corner even though he was the one retreating.

Reluctantly, she chose to stay with her father even though part of her knew he would want her to keep the fight going if he failed. But after all these years of searching for him, initially for revenge along with Morgana, and now she wasn't about to let him out her sights. So she helped carry him back to his quarters where he lied in a comatose state, most likely battling Morgana within an ethereal realm beyond his comprehension. She also made sure that Crassus hadn't yet done anything that would jeopardize their ability to get close to him once again.

So far, he hadn't issued any orders for their arrests or anything similar, likely because the Empire wasn't in the kind of position where arresting such powerful individuals as them could be justified. Which left just one more thing for her to worry about and that was what the hell could Crassus have deemed so important that he left the fight when he vowed he would kill Morgause and Hyperion if they fought against him? What could consume his focus so much that he would briefly demonstrate his power against the two younger bearers of the Dark Side and then depart for Force knew where? And what would happen if Morgana's spirit won over Hyperion's iron will, forcing Morgause to potentially turn against her aunt and kill her for good? Would she be up to the task or would she falter like she did when she had Hyperion at her mercy in finally attempting to take his life?

"I should never have trained with my aunt," Morgause said. Hyperion didn't respond as she expected but still, she continued as if he would answer. "I should've run away from her when I had the chance and damn the consequences if I got assigned to a foster home, somewhere on the fringes of Known Space! I wish I never learned what happened to my mother or agreed to train with her! But I need you, Dad, don't leave me," Morgause begged.

She knew Hyperion probably couldn't hear her but she didn't care, not when she was begging her father to persevere and defeat her vengeful aunt. Little did she realize there was a part of him that heard everything she said and grew stronger from what she said to him. Even more incredible than that, that same part of him relied on her love and her Force power to take strength. It was all he could do, having been absent from his daughter's life for so many years only to now fall into a coma.

Meanwhile, she kept watch over the comm channels, making sure that Crassus had not yet deemed them traitors or used any non-restricted channels for communication. She also noticed that the armies of the Sith were on the move now that Dathomir was under attack especially. Of late, the Republic had managed to breach the space defenses of Dathomir and send in a force of mercenaries down to the surface for their part in attacking the land forces on the planet's red surface. Little did she know that her father was the reason they had even begun the attack, the reason they knew to start it when they did, and the reason the Sith were damaged at all.

And little did she realize that even if Morgana had triumphed over Hyperion in the battle of wills, there wouldn't be much left for them. In truth, there wouldn't be much future left for the Sith now that Hyperion's mission, from Dantius' viewpoint, was essentially completed with the start of the assault on Dathomir and the war that was to come.

Chapter Six

Hyperion found himself in blackness when he "awoke" in his ethereal subconscious. His skin was not pitch black like his surrounding but he couldn't see anything, not even the outlines of objects. That was when he heard the familiar laugh of Morgana, mocking him for what Crassus had pulled off on him. "Nothing but darkness lies ahead for you, Hyperion Algethii," snapped Morgana. There was a strange echo in her voice as she spoke which was where Hyperion figured out he was in some kind of ethereal fight for dominance of his mind.

Knowing there was no other way to win the fight by standing still, he proceeded forward as best he could, even knowing that danger lied ahead. As he proceed forth, the outline of his ethereal shell changed from having a tattered loincloth he recognized from his youth as a gladiator, to the gauntlet he was most famous for carrying into those bygone battles. Since the fight ahead would take place in his mind, he conjured the wrist blade he usually collapsed into the gauntlet when he wasn't fighting and produced when he had a battle ahead that he had to win. As he kept walking forward, parts of the armor he presently wore began to take shape on his body along with the helmet he had used when he attacked Ashlynn's family on Lorrd. This set full, the only thing he was missing was a lightsaber to wield in battle against Morgana but even this was soon solved for him despite his chagrin at the choice of weaponry.

"Search your memory, Hyperion," Morgana began "did you not wield this lightsaber around the time you ravaged my sister? Did you not use the gauntlet you now possess to eliminate her suitors, hoping that she would give herself to you when she saw the dead pile up? What about the helmet of your battle against Ashlynn Thorin's family in order to spite your brother, hoping to rob him of all love and joy in his life that he may be as miserable as you?"

He knew what she was trying to do with these words, knew she was trying to make him give up his body to her by reminding him of the atrocity of his past. But he kept marching on, knowing that if he could just make Morgana manifest and defeat her in single combat, he would win back his body. That was when light began to illuminate his way, showing him the path to the destined battle with Morgana and his freedom from this havoc upon his psyche. He first saw a vestige of the past that glew red as the blade he'd wielded when he was a young man but, aside from a three-dimensional outline, had nothing that stood out until Hyperion heard them speak. Suspicious, he stopped and watched as the female figure carried something that he could only recognize as a child of about five years of age.

"Hurry, get our children inside the ship! Quickly, before father finds us!" begged the woman. The man turned Hyperion's way and called to him, beckoning his child to join him in the shuttle with his wife and youngest son, Dantius. Hyperion marched forth but when he had taken no more than three steps, the man's expression turned from beckoning to one of abject horror and Hyperion remembered why. Hyperion watched his father shake his head, denying what the child had done even as he saw it done before his eyes.

"Hyperion, what have you done?" his mother demanded. Emerging in front of him was the towering figure that Crassus had represented in Hyperion's youth. At one point eighty-two meters, Crassus had been an imposing figure in his last human form even when Hyperion was fully grown. But as his ethereal shell assumed the physicality of his eight year old form, Crassus became the Titan the boy had remembered.

He watched all over again as his father bravely stood his ground against Crassus and attempted to kill him to no perceivable avail. Crassus was simply to quick and too strong for his son and Hyperion watched all over again as Crassus grabbed him by both hands so hard, he dropped his blade. Then he watched again as Crassus raised the Crown Prince up by his wrists and disemboweled him, cutting up to his chest cavity before deactivating his blade and tossing the corpse aside without a thought to pity or remorse. Hyperion knew what was coming next even as his head threatened to split apart from the pain of his past rising up before him as if to squeeze out every last cell of his physical brain and burn it to nothingness. But he powered through this pain and when he did, he was not only back to his adult form but he was also being confronted by Crassus.

"The Dark Side consumes everything that it lays touch to. Those who wield it merely buy themselves time from being consumed by their own possession of its power. But you had a perfectly wonderful chance to live your years as a god and you squandered it to your guilt over what you did in the name of the Dark Side. Confront these demons, whatever you may think they are, and lay them to rest if you are to have any hope of becoming a powerful Force-sensitive. Embrace your darkness, admit to your deeds, and you will know the stability of mind that elude even the Grandmasters of the Jedi Order," Crassus told him.

Hyperion looked on the shape of Crassus, the lightsaber in his hand and still ignited as if he hadn't yet spilled the blood of his own children with it. Still, the younger man knew exactly what he needed to do, knew exactly what he had to say in that moment to make that image disappear. "Your training could not break me, the hands of death could not touch me even as there were plenty of ways I should've been dead, and Morgana has thus far failed to destroy me. You will be no different, captive to the past as you are!" Hyperion snapped back at him.

"You will learn to fear me, boy, or you will die," Crassus said, raising his lightsaber as if to perform a backhand swiping arc.

"I already did learn to fear you when I was your slave just as the dog learns to fear reparation from its master for misbehavior and misconduct. You already scared me witless as a child but now, you are no longer existent. My cousin beat you and your soul cowered within my mind until you learned of his death and that of many of the colleagues who joined him in taking you down!" Hyperion said, daring the phantom to strike him down. When the specter of his grandfather finally tried, Hyperion braced himself for it and was pleased to see the image dissipate into a ball of white fire before the lightsaber blade could make contact with him. His mission here completed, he followed the fireball to where it led, onward in his fight against Morgana and her attempts to possess his body, mind, and soul for her own nefarious resurrection.