<span style="font-family:times new roman; "> "You and I, Tobal Hadul, share a connection that cannot be refuted. The same ancestry resides inside of us, and I wish to... test that. Let us see where your values truly lie."</span>







He screamed, a horse throaty "NO!" It was wasted effort, the cry falling upon deaf ears, as Mat died for the hundredth time.







Tobal awoke again; the sweat coating his body sticking to the sheets, his chest gasping for air like a drowning man. He had lunged forward in his dream, leaping past the hideous being before him, he launched himself off his bed here, in the real world. His legs were encased in a cocoon of sheets, sticky with the sweat that coated his body. The young Jedi kicked the ensnaring cloth off in a horrid rush, and stood up. The air in this facility was cold at night, cold enough to send a shiver through his body. The sweat on his chest was cold against the night air, and glistened slightly with the beam of moonlight that flooded through the only window in his room.

Months ago the Shadow Jedi had meticulously planned an offensive attack against a group known as the Dark Circle, an attack that was designed to cripple their cloning capabilities and construction yards. From one standpoint, the mission was a success. The Dark Circle had never recovered from the assault, and their little tyrannical government had shriveled in power rapidly. Yes, they still existed, but they were but a shadow of what they had been. From another standpoint, the standpoint of the Jedi, the mission had gone horribly wrong. One Jedi had been captured, taken away by a Dark Jedi Apprentice, never to return. Several other apprentices' had been lost, not least amongst those had been Matrim.

Tobal moved out of the beam of moonlight, stepping into the shadows. It was a subconscious action, one beaten into his brain since birth. They cannot kill you if they cannot see you. Standing against the cold stone wall, now shrouded in an inky black shadow, the young Jedi regained his breath. This dream had come to him almost nightly for the past months, it was a reiteration of the events that happened during the assault. Their mission successful, the explosives planeted, the two learners had been exiting the sewer system of the cloning faculty. Then, he had appeared. He was a demon in appearance and action. Mat had died then, the darker recesses of his mind blinding him.

Tobal's breathing steadied, becoming more regular. The sweat had dried off his body now, leaving his loose sleeping pants clining to his legs. He was shirtless, for the nights had been warm of late. He puffed out a breath of air, and slid down to sit, his back against the cold wall. Mat had been killed by the demon in an effortless move. Every night the single swift move became more and more fluid to the tribal, more and more deadly. Mat had always been very proficient with his combat skills, his only real weakness had been his temper. Prone to flying off the handle at the strangest of times, he had been pared with Tobal in the hopes that the tribal's calm personality would steady the young Jedi out. A good attempt, but one that had failed. Mat had lost his temper, blindly attacking a being hopelessly stronger than he. And Tobal had run.

The acknowledgement of his own failure was like a slap to the face of Tobal. He never abandoned people in need! Tobal clenched his fists as he sat there, in the shadows. The muscles along his arms popped, and the veins around his neck strained at the surface of his skin. He never abandoned his friends! A sob forced its way through Tobal's constricted chest, followed by another, and another. The dry sobs wracked his body as the young man cried.









A few of the older Jedi present at the debriefing had listened to Tobal's story with compassion and understanding. The death of an apprentice was never taken lightly, but deep inside Tobal knew many of the Jedi were relieved slightly. His death was regrettable, of course, but it now meant they would not be responsible for the young man's actions in the future.

"I'm sorry, Tobal, I truly am," Beorven had said a week later. Beorven was the keeper of the library on the Celestial Corruptor. He was a very old man, who was very, very knowledgeable on the subject of written word. "I'm sorry, but the archive's don't contain anyone answering to the description you provide. Your best chance would be with the older Jedi."

Beorven had smiled in that congenial smile of his, and patted Tobal on the back. When Tobal informed him that he had already seen the Jedi, the scholar frowned, and seemed to think for a moment. Then, his eyes cleared and the smile returned.

"Take a vacation, go to Ossus. The Shadow Jedi have not been in contact with the Rogue Jedi for quite awhile now, but we're certainly not enemies. Their order is much larger than ours, and I'm sure their library is equally proportioned. The librarians there will be able to help you.

Tobal smiled, and shook Beorven's hand. "Thanks," he said, "I think I'll do that."








The planet was bulging at the seams with Force users; he could feel it to his very marrow. It seemed like the Force sang here, even more alive than ever before. If not for his habit of shunting it away in an attempt to not become dependant, Tobal would certainly have sung as well.

It had not been hard to locate the Jedi temple; everyone on Ossus knew its location. He had hitched a ride with a freight deliveryman from the spaceport, a harrowing experience, and now he found himself in one of the many grand courtyards before the temple. Pulling his floppy hat down over his eyes, he had taken to wearing a brimmed hat these days; Tobal strode forward at a quick pace. He had abandoned his Jedi robes at the Corruptor when he left, not wanting to stick out amongst the other travelers. Despite the plainness of the garb, very few people wore it. The Empire had killed people wearing such clothing on sight, even now there was an instinctive aversion from the design. Now, here at the Jedi Temple of an order he was unfamiliar with, Tobal had mixed feelings about leaving the robes behind. Wearing them here may have elected a challenge from someone who did not recognize him, yet on the other hand it might have given him an air of respectability. Whatever reasons he might have for wanting the robes now, he had to live with not having them. And here, he now stuck out like a sore thumb. With his modern pants, shirt, and floppy hat he looked like one of the random tourists or visitors, but any Jedi nearby would know he was anything but.

And he didn't want to ask anyone where the library was.

In some ways, Ossus was the home that Gash Jiren had always imagined.

It was a sanctuary in a galaxy torn apart by war. It was a fortress, a place dominated by the Force, something that most in the Empire feared, or even hated. Protected by planetary shielding and municipal shielding, bunkers, robotic soldiers, and of course, Jedi, Ossus was a tactical nightmare for invaders, and something of a hell for criminals.

Even the droid soldiers themselves were as mythical as the world and its Jedi inhabitants; the famous Cobra-Omega Battledroids, led by the original model, D31, were some of the only "sentient", self-replicating, self-repairing droids in the galaxy. They'd evolved into a self-sufficient race of protectors, who were no longer servants, but willing protectors, driven by a deep sense of morality and chivalry.

Ossus was urban, covered in cityscape, and yet possessed parks and trees on every corner; thus, it had offered all the amenities and quality of life of Coruscant, without the rampant pollution. The peace and order ensured by the Jedi and Cobra Battledroids meant that it was also a place of learning, a serene world of universities and libraries, and the wisdom of Jedi Masters.

Yes, Gash Jiren had crafted the perfect world, the perfect home. A utopia, hardened by the harsh battles of the war against Thrawn, yet made whole by the power and knowledge of the Force.

But it was not home.

Home was something you could not replicate, could not reproduce with all the wisdom and power and money in the galaxy. Asthentia was Gash Jiren's home, and he knew this, even as he basked in the glory of Ossus.

Finding Asthentia had been a uniquely unsatisfying experience. Obviously, he felt the innate attachment all beings felt to their homeworld; he had met his family for the first time since the events that had left him scarred and wrought with amnesia (perhaps of the self-inflicted variety).

He'd been a Sith when he had found it, and it was apparent to him now that he had, inside, hoped that finding his homeworld and his past would "save" him; break that unbreakable spiral of evil that envelops all Sith. In some ways, it had: after all, it was Rakili, the Jedi guardian of that world, who had led him to the light side of the Force.

But Gash had found Asthentia not to be a paradise (despite its isolation), but simply an extension of the rest of the galaxy. The equivalent of a technologically backward version of any of a thousand worlds. Joruck Denti, his uncle, had attempted to kill him almost immediately upon his arrival. It was not a place of purity and hope. It was just like everything else. Dirty and crooked.

That was the nature of things. There was a dark side to everything and everyone, if one chose to look close enough. Perhaps that was why he'd strived to rebuild Ossus into a glorious vision of its former self. He did not know; that wisdom eluded him. He was, after all, young by his people's standards.

The Chiss doctor took another look at the scars. "You were informed that this could happen, Master Jedi. Ryll is not an absolute treatment, as bacta is. While it does heal wounds, it does not restructure the network of the tissue it heals. While it can dissolve scar tissue and heal it, the scar tissue can --"

"Reassert itself. I know, Axyl." Gash had also had medical training, and had in fact been a doctor on Asthentia previous to his having left under duress.

The doctor sighed. "We can continue to treat it. Bi-weekly treatments should keep the scars at bay."

The attempt to heal the three scars on Gash's face using ryll face had been primarily an attempt to make him less recognizable; though, of course, his face was extremely well known after years of being a political leader, he could, occasionally, elude detection without such obvious identifying marks.

That attempt, however, had failed. As was prone to happen, the scar tissue had resurfaced after a few months, the gashes that had given him his name as prominent as ever.

"Tissue can develop a resistence to ryll, doctor."

"Yes," Axyl said, seeming somewhat displeased at being rendered useless by an equally skilled physician. "That is true. And if we render ryll useless, that would exhaust the list of possible treatments for future wounds."

"That's not my concern, Axyl," Gash said. "I daresay that I may be able to heal myself, if the need arose. I know one or two Force tricks."

"Yes, of course," Axyl said.

Gash stayed silent for a moment. "Well, we tried, at least. Leave them."

Axyl nodded.

Kasien Treseda spoke up from behind them, where he sat idly behind Gash's desk. "If I can interrupt the misery, for a minute," he said sarcastically. "The scars look fine, always have. We have some more pressing business."

Gash turned. "Yes?"

Kasien hit a button on the desk, and a hologram sprang forth. "Recognize him?"

"Seems a little out of place, doesn't he?" Gash asked, moving closer. "A Shadow Jedi, no less." He closed his eyes for a moment, drifting slowly away, his sphere of consciousness expanding. "Tobal Hadul."

Kasien was nodding when he opened his eyes. "Right. One of the droids recognized him a minute ago. You want to greet him?"

"Why not?" Gash replied. He started away, then stopped, returning to the desk for a moment. He made as if to rub his eyes and, a moment later, placed two plasteel lenses on the table. When he looked back at Kasien, his eyes were once again their slightly-glowing red hue. "If I can't hide the scars, I won't be needing these."

Some things, like home, could not be erased from memory or appearance, despite the best of efforts.



Minutes later, a diminutive, bumbling man approached the dazed stranger. His dark hair was windblown, his eyes watery, and his gold-rimmed glasses slightly askew. He repeatedly checked a small piece of paper, and each time he did he looked around, as if frantically searching.

When he finally seemed to find what he was looking for, he even then seemed reluctant. He looked slowly up at Tobal Hadul, who towered rather impressively over him, blinking repeatedly. "Gash Jiren g-greets you, s-sir," he said, "and wishes t-to know... what is it t-that you seek?"

He avoided eye contact with Hadul, distinctly not at ease, and seemed altogether intimidated by the man before him, as if he would scream and run at the slightest movement by the Shadow Jedi.

He stood in the middle of an incredibly large gallery. People were passing by continuously, running hither and thither on their various missions. Surprisingly few wore the robes of a Jedi, Tobal had seen but two. They had been rather engrossed in the discussion they were having, and had not bothered to look up at the young man who had been walking in the opposite direction. He had been to two reception desks already, and had received one map of the temple, yet he still could not find anything that even remotely looked like a library.

Lost, he thought to himself. Completely and utterly lost. If he had been more experienced in the traditions of these Rouge Jedi, he would have searched for a Jedi to aid him in his search. However, offending some small ritual was not a mistake he wished to make - one never knew the penalties the other tribe had for small transgressions.

A small tickle made its presence known to Tobal, a tickle at the back of his head. It was somewhat like what he experienced when danger or ill intention was in the immediate area, but it carried none of the urgency nor dirty feeling that danger carried.

"Gash Jiren g-greets you, s-sir," came a rather timid sounding voice from his side. Tobal turned his head, and was confronted with what appeared to be a standard human whose stature was much shorter than his own.

The small man continued in a stuttering way, "...and wishes t-to know... what is it t-that you seek?" Tobal was by no means tall by the galactic standard; in fact, he was far below it standing just a little over 160 cm. This man could have been no more than 145, and he looked up at Tobal as if he were looking at his executor.

"I seek a librarian," replied the Shadow Jedi truthfully. The small man seemed to visibly wince at Tobal's words.

Jiren... the name rang a bell, somewhat... ah yes, thought Tobal, that man. A few of the older Shadows had mentioned him occasionally, and there had been a small class on him a few years ago. From what he had heard this Jiren could be anything from the most hideous creature on the face of the earth to the savior of the galaxy - maybe even both.

"Ah... ah, yes, yes s-sir," the little man said. He checked his chronometer once, then glanced about him, then pulled a small datapad from his pocket and punched several buttons frantically. He gestured that Tobal should follow him, leading him out of the gallery and through a maze of hallways.

Up a turbolift and a flight of stairs, through a smaller library and into a larger one, the little man continued to stumble, head down, bumping into the occasional person and apologizing profusely each time. Yet after ten minutes of searching through the immense building upon which the Jedi Temple sat, they seemed no closer to finding a proper librarian than before.

"I... I must apologize, good sir," the man said, flinching back as if Tobal was about to tear out his hear and eat it raw, "I know that you are in s-somewhat of a hurry but... it seems we are lost." He winced. "I am sorry."

Tobal pursed his lips, and rocked back on his heels slightly. Crossing his arms, he looked at the little man before him and examined him. The man appeared absolutely terrified, as if fearing for his very life. For the last minute Tobal had realized that the small tickle was still there, still tickling at the back of his mind. It wasn't a warning of danger, nor of malicious intent, just a warning that something was not as it should be.

The passive force was not Tobal's strength, far from it, he was quite handicapped in the area when compared to some of the other Knights aboard the Corruptor

"No," he said to the man in a soft voice, "I'm not in a great hurry. That was a Library we went through, back there, was it not?" he said, gesturing back the way they had come. "Perhaps we could go back there and ask someone?"

"Too right we could," the man said, in a voice that was not his own. It had suddenly become accented, in an almost Imperial way, and the quaver it had borne before was now absent. In the second it took to blink, the diminutive man was gone, replaced by another man, now only slightly taller in stature, but more imposing in presence.

Gash Jiren stood at slightly less than average height, and still possessed the thin build similar to the little man he'd portrayed. The trademark facial scars and red eyes were present. Yet he bore something of a similarity in appearance to Hadul; he possessed the same white hair, the same tanned skin.

"Or you could simply ask me." Glancing up at Hadul, Gash smiled thinly. "The measure of a man is how he treats those he feels to be his lessers. I had to be sure. So many of your kind are... conflicted, in their nature. The founder of your order -- my former apprentice -- in particular."

Suddenly aware that he was gaping, Tobal closed his mouth abruptly. The tickle at the back of his mind was gone now, and he quickly (now that the initial surprise was over) realized what it had been for. He made a mental note to study up on the trick he had just witnessed.

Jiren's mention about his need for caution made Tobal frown slightly, caution for what? His slight hesitation before he said conflicted indicated he meant something a little more than simply, conflicted. Tobal added that to his mental list of things to study on later as well.

"You, trained Fearsons?" he asked Jiren, slightly hesitatingly. How old is this man? He wondered. At the Corruptor they said Fearsons was a millennia old -- albeit the hero-worship was fairly obvious to Hadul.

"Yes, I did," Gash replied, nodding somewhat gravely. It was not one of his fondest achievements; in fact, he considered Chadd Fearsons to be one of his most monumental failures. He'd spiraled out of control since his Jedi training, eventually embracung the moral ambiguity of his 'Shadow Jedi' order. "Does that suprise you?"

He smiled a little. "Perhaps it would suprise you to learn that I am fifty years old, yet age, as you can see, has not caught up with me." Indeed, the Jedi Master appeared to be little more than thirty. "Chadd is -- or was, I honestly don't know of his whereabouts or wellbeing -- a half-breed of at least two species. Unlike such short-lived beings as humans, the lives of his people drag on into the multitudes of centuries. Appearances can be deceiving. Fearsons seemed to be a fully grown man, but in maturity, in wisdom, he was little more than a child."

"I thought I would be able to train him, where Leia had failed," the Jedi Master continued, his weak smile faltering. "I thought that I could help him find his path because of the certain kinship we shared-- both part-humans, both former Sith. Obviously, I was wrong.

"But you didn't come here to listen to my sad stories, did you, Mister Hadul? You have ones of your own that need telling."

"Yes..." said Tobal. "You might say that."

There was something about this man that seemed to calm Tobal, it was as if the man was larger than life, but in a different way than one thought. It was as if he emitted an aura, an aura that prompted people to trust him.

"I came here in search of your library," said Tobal, for going over what both already knew. "I have come to research a race of beings of which I have only seen one. The library aboard the Corruptor was unable to locate anything like what I have seen.

He slowed for a moment, the memory of the demon being etched in his mind coming back again, the ever so slow, so fluid movement in which he had killed Mat blazing across his vision. Shaking his head slightly, Tobal looked back to the other Jedi.

"It was like hell," he said softly.

A flash. A flash of something.

That is what Gash Jiren felt as he examined Tobal Hadul. This was not altogether remarkable; often, those who sought him out were troubled by poignant memories that had a habit of jabbing back unprompted. Such things could be easily sensed within their consciousness by one as attuned to the Force as Gash.

But there was something different about this one. Something familiar. And that disturbed him.

Gash quickly hid this, and spoke on in his calm, accented voice. "Yes, the galaxy holds a great many rarities in terms of species. Many scholars and librarians here on Ossus have dedicated their lives to chronicling them all. I have... no doubt that we will be able to find what you are looking for."

He smiled reassuringly. "Before we seek out a holocron, may I ask you to describe this species?"