Private Spirit of Adoption (old version)

[Inanna Harth]

This is an older, non-canon version of this thread. I highly recommend you read the new version instead of this, as several key events have been changed.​

From a letter written in Shi-idese, given to Pygar for delivery to the Hoole family:

Dear Mom and Dad,

I’m sorry for not staying in touch. Know that I am alive and as well as I can be under the circumstances. I’m sure this letter and the person carrying it will come as something of a surprise, but I need your help. Or rather, the kid needs your help.

Remember the stories about how Great-Grandpa Mammon adopted those two kids who were left orphaned after Alderaan was destroyed by the Galactic Empire? They were the children of his brother’s wife’s sister (or were they his sister-in-law’s brother’s kids?), a distant relative by marriage, but he was the only family they had left. So he took them in, educated them, and kept them safe even when the two brats got themselves into all kinds of trouble with bounty hunters, fake Jedi, the Rebellion, and even Darth Vader. In return they kept him from being executed for the destruction he unknowingly wrought upon Kiva. Though they didn’t get along at first, Mammon and the kids gradually developed an affection and mutual respect for one another. He became Uncle Hoole to them, no more and no less.

Well, I now find myself in a similar situation. I have become “Aunt Inanna”, it seems, and this young man is my Tash and Zak Arranda.

His name is Pygar, and he’s a changeling like us. The circumstances of his life so far have been pretty rough, and he is badly in need of a proper home and family to guide him before he can make his way in the galaxy. With my current situation, I can’t provide these things for him—but I know you can. That’s why I’m entrusting him to you.

I don’t want you to think that I’m ungrateful or irresponsible. Don’t look at this boy as a burden being shifted from me onto you. Look at him as a sign of my appreciation for all that you’ve done for me, that I would think of you before all others as perfect parents. You raised my brothers and I well—don’t let anything ever convince you otherwise.

I’m sure he can explain himself better than I can, so I won’t go into too much detail. Suffice to say, he was experimented on and had his mind wiped; his memory only stretches back the last two years. Some of his ideas about life may be pretty wild and crazy, but he’s not dangerous. Please be patient with him. He has potential. Dad, I think you’ll like him especially—he reminds me in many ways of Ari when he was young.

All my love,
Inanna

~~~​

Goshen, Lao-mon
Hoole Family Residence

Tammuz Hoole had been pacing all night. He held his bony, withered hands clasped behind his back as he walked from one end of the common room to the other, his long red robes trailing across the smooth boards. His reflection in the wide window that ran the width and breadth of the chamber was a blurred swath of scarlet and silver on the darkened glass, constantly moving.

Seated at the table behind him was his wife, Lilith. Clad in only her nightclothes and a white robe, she was pale and wraithlike. Her tapered fingers clutched the letter that had arrived earlier that evening, borne by the same strange young man who was currently sitting across from her, his head bowed and his one good eye closed as if in sleep.

The white-haired stranger’s arrival had been sudden and unannounced. Lilith was getting ready for bed; she couldn’t hear the knock on the door over the sound of the high pressure water as she showered, nor was she aware of the discussion that followed as the two moved up to the third floor of the house. But judging by her husband’s behavior and the contents of the letter he had shoved into her hands the moment she came upstairs, the proceedings had probably been hopelessly awkward at best.

She folded up the letter, quaintly written by hand on paper, and slid it back into the equally anachronistic envelope. At this sign of her having finished reading, Tammuz’s steps slowed to a stop.

“Well, wife—what do you make of this?” he asked.

She raised an eyebrow and pursed her lips. “I’m just glad to be hearing from Inanna.”

Tammuz nodded, grunting in approval. “What do you suppose she means by her ‘current situation’?” he asked. “Is it that she is currently employed by the Sith Empire?” He glanced at the young man, his voice lowering. “Or that she has smuggled you out at great risk to herself?”

The young man’s eye opened and flicked toward Lilith, hoping for a defense. She sighed.

“At least he made it here alive. And now we have some idea of where Inanna is and how she’s doing, after all these years.”

Tammuz snorted. “We know how she was doing when she wrote that letter. The borders of the Sith Empire lie at the other end of the galaxy. It took you weeks to get here, didn’t it, boy?” He shook his head. “And that was traveling in haste. Anything could have happened to her since then.”

“I told you my name, sir,” the young man said quietly. “I’d prefer it if you’d use it.”

The patriarch smirked. “Pygar it is, then.”

“Wouldn’t you have sensed it if something had happened to her?” Lilith asked, hoping to keep the peace and focus the conversation. “Regardless of the distance?”

“I would have felt her die, yes. But there are worse things than death.” Tammuz spread his arms. “She could be sitting in a deep dark cell somewhere, paying for Pygar’s freedom with her own. Perhaps she has already been slated for execution…”

Aged eyes stared pointedly at the computer desk at the far end of the room. The data chip which Pygar had also brought with him in addition to the letter was still inserted. After seeing what information it contained, Tammuz had felt an immediate need to stand up and move away from his desk, followed by an irrational desire to burn it all and purge his memory of it.

"Would they really execute her for helping you escape?" Lilith asked Pygar.

He shrugged. "It would depend on whether I was deemed a traitor, and if she could be linked to me."

Tammuz glanced at Pygar over his shoulder, then turned to face him fully. “You still haven’t told us how you got that data.”

The Sithspawn hesitated, avoiding eye contact with either of them. “I stole it,” he admitted, rubbing his hands together in his lap. Though the gesture was a nervous one, the corners of his mouth curled up in a smile of proud triumph. “The data chip is mine. I broke into my… creator’s private residence on Dromund Kaas and downloaded the data directly from his personal computer.”

“Did anyone witness you doing this?” Tammuz pressed, knowing the answer would determine how much danger his daughter might be facing now. How much danger they would all be facing...

"Not that I know of. The place is managed by a Tsudakyr, or biological computer system—almost like an artificial intelligence, but it's a literal, physical brain in charge of all systems. They're hard to trick, but I think I managed well enough." Pygar's smile faded. “Though I did leave in a hurry. It was much easier to get in than it was to get out.”

“You were likely seen leaving the premises," Tammuz concluded sourly.

Hunching his shoulders, Pygar spread his hands in a beseeching gesture. “I don’t know—probably. It’s not like I was trying to get caught! I knew it was dangerous, I knew it was a risk, but I wanted word to get out about what Vandiir was doing—”

"What Mr. Vandiir is doing is not something which you or I can stop," Tammuz interrupted. "I would have preferred it if you had not brought me this... bestiary. It's bad enough living in hopelessly violent times without knowing that there are creatures like you and your ilk running amok."

The Sithspawn stared at him. Lilith stood up at once and moved to his side, placing her hands on the young man’s shoulders.

“We’ve been inconsiderate hosts,” she said soothingly. “You must be very tired, having journeyed so far. Come on, I’ll show you to your room…”

Tammuz turned away as she led the boy downstairs to the guest room, clenching his jaw in restrained anger. He gazed through the window at the wilderness beyond, and permitted himself to feel the waves of stiff-lipped anger and suffering still pouring out of the retreating Pygar through the Force. Already he regretted his words, but he could not bring himself to apologize. Quite frankly, he saw the data chip as a horrible burden being heaped upon him in his old age, one that he didn't want and didn't deserve.

Minutes later Lilith ascended the stairs alone, having put Pygar to bed. Rather than resuming her seat at the table, she approached her husband, standing at his side. “I thought you said you didn’t want any more children.”

He snorted, one corner of his wrinkled mouth curling upward. “Eight ought to be enough.”

“Well, what’s one more?” She rested her head on his shoulder. “Don't be so hard on him. He had no choice in the matter of what he is."

"I don't resent him. I resent the responsibility being foisted upon us."

Lilith sighed. "Well, at least he’s fully grown—if Inanna had sent us a baby, it would be another story.”

“I’m afraid she’s sent us more than that,” he said darkly. “The Sith will come here searching, if not for him, then for the data he stole. They will not care about the spirit of adoption.”

“So, do we hire a few bodyguards? Spend money on a fancy new home defense system?” She frowned. “We certainly can’t throw him out now, after all he’s been through to reach us…”

“He told you how he lost his eye?” he inquired, wondering what might've been discussed between them downstairs. People tended to find Lilith easy to confide in, whereas they were intimidated by Tammuz because of his reputation and stern gaze.

She hummed sadly in reply. “Gouged out by a bunch of common thugs who thought he had credits they could steal, because he bought a weapon to defend himself and paid for it with all the cash he had left.”

“Perhaps a cybernetic replacement...” But even as he spoke, Tammuz knew it was unlikely to work out that way. Changelings either regrew their body parts naturally, or they found ways to hide what they were missing and compensate for the loss without compromising their shapeshifting abilities. From what he could tell, Pygar was already on his way to accomplishing the latter, though the colorful scarf he wore tied around his head was certainly an interesting temporary solution. The fact that he had not regenerated his gouged eye actually came as a relief to Tammuz. It alleviated one of the many fears he had spontaneously developed upon his brief first viewing of the smuggled data files from Vandiir’s computer.

Though she was not Force sensitive, Lilith could pick up on her husband’s shift in mood and even guess his thoughts with all the familiarity of a spouse who had been married for three centuries. “He’s not one of us, is he?” she asked. “The letter mentioned experiments, mindwipes…”

“I believe the official Basic name for his kind is ‘Sith Changeling’,” Tammuz replied. “I won’t perpetuate the Sith tongue by speaking their ‘true’ name aloud. For now, simply referring to him as a changeling will suffice. We’ll have to keep his nature a secret anyway.”

The two fell into contemplative silence. “That was sweet, how she compared herself to your grandfather,” Lilith remarked after some time had passed. "He had his rough patches, but Mammon was a good person at heart."

“Many comparisons can be made between my grandfather and the various elements of this matter,” Tammuz murmured, turning back toward the window. Outside, the jungle was in darkness. It was very late, but he was still clad in the scholarly raiment he had worn to the ceremony that day at the newly opened Mammon Hoole University of Anthropology.

“The timing is certainly apt,” she said. “Do you suppose she knew?”

“Word doesn’t travel that far, especially not from—" He halted in mid-sentence, a faraway look coming into his ancient gaze.

“What is it?” she asked, concerned.

His head tilted to the side, his lips parting in surprise. “Arimanes just entered the system,” he said, glancing at her in disbelief.

She covered her mouth with her hand. “Ari? Here? And right after Inanna—”

“She isn’t with him,” Tammuz clarified quickly. “Although his presence in the Force is… strange. I don’t know how to describe it.”

“We’ll find out why soon enough.” She couldn’t help but smile in excitement. “Ari is coming home—I can hardly believe it! Oh, I won’t be able to get any sleep tonight at all!”

 

[Jacen Nimdok]

As always, the Goshen Spaceport—the only major one on all of Lao-mon—was practically deserted even in the middle of the day. Accompanied by a practically sleepwalking Miri, Arimanes strolled through the empty corridors. Along the way to the exit, he passed a small handful of family reunions with both returning Shi’ido adventurers, their bodies twisted into all manner of strange shapes, and visiting interspecies relatives bound by marriage and adoption. Amidst all this joy and gladness, no one spared them so much as a second glance as the pointy-eared man and the little girl passed through the sliding doors.

The humid jungle air enveloped him, carrying with it the scent of familiar flora. He breathed deep, embracing the atmosphere like an old friend. For better or worse, he was home.

An ancient public speeder carried them out of the city, chugging along through the dense foliage to the outskirts. Miri fidgeted in her seat, whining softly.

“Are we there yet?”

“Almost," Arimanes replied. "Another couple of hours, and then you can sleep in a comfortable bed."

She leaned against his side, prompting him to put his arm around her. In what seemed like seconds, she had closed her eyes and nodded off. Looking down at her, he felt a tightening in his chest. It would be difficult to leave her behind...

<Don't you dare.> The inner voice of Nimdok needled him. <I don’t give a damn about your adventures or your attempts at creating your own private collection of artifacts. That can wait until she’s grown. It can all wait!>

He shook his head. <It can't wait. I've already done too much. Besides, it's too dangerous for her to remain with me even if I did stop.>

<What am I supposed to do if you decide to leave her here, hop into one of their bodies? She’s the whole reason I’m with you in the first place!>

Arimanes had no answer. Nimdok's ghost continued to seethe for most of the ride, but Arimanes had seemingly made up his mind. The child would be left on Lao-mon with the Hoole family, if they would accept her—and he had little doubt they would.

Finally the speeder came to a stop, the doors sliding open to let the passengers out. Arimanes swallowed the lump in his throat, scooped Miri up, and carried her outside. The speeder went on its way, leaving the man and the girl alone in the wilderness.

Well, not exactly. The land had long since been developed, a few scattered houses built into the lush landscape for the truly wealthy members of Shi’ido society—the scholars, that is.

Here in the jungle the air was even heavier, the smell of disturbed earth and native flowers intoxicating. Arimanes took a moment to bask in it. This was the land of his forefathers; the chirps and calls of birds, insects, and all manner of creatures in the rainforest had been his cradle songs. Here he was Arimanes again, a boy with tremendous ambitions, his dreams stretching out to the very stars themselves, always light years ahead of everyone else.

Yet it was with a heavy heart that he walked the forest path up the mountain to the House of Hoole, a route he had taken countless times in his youth. His footsteps were light as he crossed the wooden deck to the primary entrance of the house, hesitating before the staircase that stretched up to the second floor entrance. The house had been built in such a way so as to disturb the forest floor as little as possible, resulting in some unusual architecture. Arimanes had only one suitcase carrying all the belongings he and Miri shared, but it and the child in his arms were a little much to be taking up those steep steps.

Fortunately, he didn't have to leave one or the other behind for a second trip. He heard the door open above him and glanced up to see Lilith Hoole standing at the top of the stairs, blinking at him with large, wet black eyes. “Ari?” she asked, her voice hardly above a whisper.

Of course she knew he was here. Tammuz would’ve felt his presence the moment he set foot on the planet. He pictured the old patriarch sitting up in bed, the suddenness of his old protege’s return waking him up in the middle of the night, and turning to his wife to tell her the strange news. With a sigh of understanding, he nodded.

“Hello, Lilith.”

Wordlessly she descended the steps. Her eyes landed on the suitcase, and still without saying anything she picked it up and started back up. Adjusting his hold on Miri, he followed her.

Lilith let him into the house and shut the door behind them. Inside it was cool, the shades closed against the sun.

“It’s so good to see you,” Lilith said. She hovered at his side, her onyx gaze drawn to the sleeping child he held. “Who is this little one?”

“Her name is Miri,” he answered. “As you can see, she is exhausted from the trip.”

She crooned softly in sympathy, lightly stroking the girl’s head. “And people wonder why most of us avoid traveling.” Glancing up at him, she hesitated. “We have someone already in the guest room. I can put her up in Inanna’s old room…”

The significance of mentioning Inanna’s bedroom, in a house with no less than six sleeping quarters, wasn’t lost on him. Lilith was baiting him, fishing for news of her daughter.

“I saw her a few months ago,” he said, watching her posture visibly relax as he followed her down the hall. “I went to her for help, and wound up helping her.”

“Oh?” Lilith prompted, opening the door to what had been Inanna’s quarters. The room had been left largely unchanged since she left for Coruscant some fifty years earlier, even down to the shifting holographic posters on the walls displaying the same imagery.

“She had seen better days,” he admitted, choosing his words carefully. Lilith was changing the bed sheets while listening to him intently. “She left the Jedi Academy many years ago, but was too ashamed to tell you. So she tried to disappear, working odd jobs…”

The situation he had found Inanna in would have broken her mother’s heart. A high-class prostitute in a brothel adjacent to a notorious gambling den, Inanna had apparently been working the circuit for over forty years, hiding behind an untraceable alter ego. No one who cared about her knew what had happened to her. No one had ever bothered to come looking. No one except him… and even then, he had his own selfish reasons for seeking her out.

Finished with the bed linens, Lilith moved out of the way. She watched curiously as Arimanes undressed the girl, taking off her shoes and socks and removing her day dress all without disturbing the child’s sleep. Once Miri was under the covers, Lilith stepped out of the room. Arimanes lingered a few moments longer, deliberately folding the child’s clothes and setting them aside before joining her outside in the hallway.

“Is she yours?” Lilith asked as soon as he shut the door.

“Yes,” he replied without hesitation.

“She’s not one of us..."

“No,” he clarified. “Her mother was Human, her father was either Sephi or Eldorai.”

“Hm.” She pursed her lips. “I was wondering why you looked like this.” She lowered her voice. “Does she know what you are?”

“She believes I am her father, Nimdok."

“Nimdok,” she murmured, as though tasting the name. Shrugging off the subject, she took a deep breath. “It’s wonderful to see you again, Ari.”

She held out her arms. Reluctantly he accepted her embrace, and just as reluctantly he released her.

Patting his shoulder as though she still couldn't believe he was really there, she asked, “Are you as tired as your little one?”

“I’ll be wide awake for a while now,” he replied. “You said someone else was staying in the guest room?”

“Yes—” She hesitated. "His name is Pygar, he arrived last night. Inanna sent him to us. He's in a bit of trouble."

Arimanes' interest was piqued as soon as she revealed Inanna was involved. “What kind of trouble?”

“We haven’t quite figured that out yet.” She smiled thinly. “He’s upstairs with Tammuz. Speaking of which, that old man is just as excited to see you as I am—but he’s been obsessing over this... thing with the boy. I'll let him explain it to you, I'm sure he can do a better job of it than I can.”

With that, she turned away from him. Raising an eyebrow, Arimanes followed her up yet another set of steps, this one leading to the third floor.

 

[Jacen Nimdok]

Tammuz sat at his computer desk in a reserved corner of the living room, a writing stylus clutched in his hand. Pygar had pulled up a chair beside him in order to look at the screen, a bowl of food in his lap. Despite the graphic content of the data, he was eating voraciously.

They had already looked at the Tsudakyr and Changeling files. Now the Doppelganger dossier was on display.

“Absolutely ridiculous,” Tammuz was saying, his eyes scanning the text. “I don’t know what kind of DNA he got a hold of, but this thing has little in common with the Shi’ido beyond our shapeshifting abilities.”

“It’s a crossbreed between a Shi’ido and an Anzat,” Pygar pointed out.

“I noticed that—of course a Sith ‘scientist’ would think to turn us into mind-eating vampires. As if our reputation in the galaxy wasn’t already murky enough.” With his stylus, Tammuz gestured to the section on Reproduction. “Where did he get the idea that we can change our sex? Does he not realize that while we may alter our exterior appearance to imitate any member of another species, our internal organs must still function the same, including the reproductive system? And what is this nonsense about gestating a “seed” to impregnate females of other species with?” He snorted derisively and shook his head. “If that were the case, my great-uncle Moloch and his Human wife wouldn’t have had to resort to adoption in order to start a family.”

Pygar swallowed another bite of his food, then asked, “Is that who Inanna’s letter was talking about? The brother’s wife’s sister-in-law, or whatever the relation was?”

“She was referring to Moloch Hoole and his wife Beryl,” Tammuz replied. “Moloch was my grandfather’s brother. Beryl was the sister of Kalf Arranda, the father of Tash and Zak. Moloch, Beryl, Kalf and his wife Milessa were all killed when Alderaan was destroyed. Tash and Zak only survived because the children were on a field trip offworld when it happened.” He tilted his head. “Under the laws of most human cultures, Mammon was under no legal obligation to care for the Arranda children. After all, what little relation there was between them had been completely eradicated with Moloch’s death. But because he wished to honor his brother, Mammon invoked ish’ken, the spirit of adoption.”

“Is that what you’re doing with me?” Pygar asked.

Tammuz hesitated. His mind was still lingering on certain unpleasant facts—particularly Vandiir’s claim that the sexual exploits of Doppelgangers frequently resulted in Sith Changelings. The ludicrosity of such a statement wasn’t lost on him, but when it came to the Force, quite literally anything was possible. A haphazardly bioengineered species’ offspring could turn out to be a member of a different species created by the same aspiring alchemist, and a random virgin slave on a backwater world could conceive a prophesied son all because a pair of ambitious Sith Lords essentially raped spirituality itself with their sheer willpower...

“Inanna has more or less adopted you,” Tammuz consented, his tone stern. “But because she is placing you in our care, we have the right to refuse. Until we invoke ish’ken, don’t consider this place your home yet.”

“Tammuz!” Lilith hissed as she emerged from the stairs. “Don’t crush the poor boy’s hopes. He just got here!”

Behind her was Arimanes. In the form of Nimdok, he appeared to be a male Sephi, aged around thirty five, with black hair and dark brown eyes. He was clad in a standard gray flight suit, the kind issued to passengers of deep space voyages. To Pygar, he looked… a little strange, though he couldn’t put his finger on the cause of this impression. The man’s features were ordinary, yet somehow he seemed to stand out.

Despite his unfamiliar form, Tammuz recognized Arimanes immediately, feeling his presence in the Force. Rising from his seat, the patriarch absorbed his stylus into the flesh of his wrist and strolled forward, meeting Arimanes in the middle of the room. But as he approached, his pace slowed and he hesitated, stopping himself just short of embracing the visitor.

“I foresaw your arrival last night,” Tammuz said, speaking in Shi’idese. “Are you well?”

Arimanes bowed his head slightly. “Yes. What about you? How have things been holding up around here?”

“Until recently, things had been uneventful.” Tammuz turned to Pygar, switching back to Basic. “This is Arimanes Bosch, a former pupil of mine. And this is Pygar, a young man who wishes to join our family," Tammuz introduced them.

“Arimanes has become a father himself through ish’ken,” Lilith commented pointedly. “His daughter is sleeping downstairs.”

Tammuz sighed, then turned to find Arimanes looking at him rather oddly. Or rather, he was looking past him at Pygar, who returned his stare with equal intensity.

“Do I know you from somewhere?” the boy asked.

“That depends,” Arimanes replied, clenching his jaw. “Does the name Nimdok mean anything to you?”

Pygar thought for a moment, then his eyebrows rose. “You’re the one who stole that Sith holocron!”

“Sith holocron?” Tammuz echoed in bewilderment.

“The holocron has been disposed of,” Arimanes replied coolly. To be exact, what remained of the holocron was currently in the possession of one Elise Ike at her private residence on Saleucami. “The bigger question is, how do you know about it?”

“Please, Ari,” Lilith began, wanting to avoid a hostile confrontation or argument. “Inanna sent him to us. He traveled alone all the way from Dromund Kaas to bring your father secret data. He’s in enough danger as it is without the two of you ganging up on him as if he were a criminal!”

“I have no intention of ‘ganging up’ on you,” Arimanes went on, never taking his eyes off of Pygar. “But I suggest you answer my question.” The threat implicit in his tone was vague, but it was clear he wasn't going to let this go.

“I came here from the Sith Empire,” Pygar replied, standing up without fear. “Inanna helped smuggle me out. I know about the holocron because my… my old master wanted it. You took it before he could get his hands on it, and he’s been looking for you ever since. Just like they're hunting me down now, because I stole a Sith Lord's data.”

“Oh no,” Lilith could be heard muttering under her breath in the dead silence that followed. “Ari, does this mean…”

“It means exactly what it sounds like.” Arimanes shook his head. “I came here to avoid the Sith, but I won’t stay if my presence puts you in even more danger.”

“No, Ari—you’ve only just arrived,” Lilith pleaded. “As long as the Sith don’t know either of you are here—”

"And how long will that be?" Arimanes shot back. As she flinched, he lowered his voice. "I didn't intend to stay long anyway, only for a few days." And he had intended to leave Miri behind here for the sake of the child's safety, but that hope was already dwindling to nothing. "Perhaps I can make an arrangement with my parents..."

He trailed off. The sudden change in expression on Tammuz and Lilith's faces told him everything.

"Your parents... have already passed on," Tammuz explained. "Your father died twenty four years ago, and your mother seven years ago. There's a different family living in their house now."

"I'm so sorry," Lilith murmured. "We would've sent word when it happened, but we didn't know where you were or how to contact you..."

Arimanes showed little reaction to the news, not even surprise or shock. His eyes shifted between the faces of the Hooles, and when he spoke his voice was considerably quieter and subdued.

"There's no need to apologize. I disappeared on you. Going into exile meant turning away from everyone I knew, everyone I cared about." He averted his eyes, looking down. "If you'll excuse me, I'm feeling more tired than I thought. I better get some rest."

Still avoiding eye contact, he turned and headed back downstairs, leaving the others standing in the living room.

 

[Jacen Nimdok]

In the bedroom across the hallway from where Miri slept, Arimanes shut himself off from the rest of the household. He closed the brise-soleil so that no natural light came through and lay on the bed in complete darkness.

He could never be truly alone. In the back of his mind the ghost of Nimdok was rummaging around, uncomfortable sharing space with Arimanes’ bottled up grief and frustration.

<I’m sorry about your parents. I understand what it’s like to become an orphan. My mother and father died before I graduated college. They never met my wife, never had a chance to get to know their granddaughter...>

Arimanes was promptly treated to a broad impression of who Nimdok’s parents were. Deronda, the beaten-down immigrant father, a quiet, reserved, somewhat distant man with a wise, knowing stare. On Sanctuary he had been a fisherman; on Alderaan he was a carpenter. His hands were leathery from a lifetime of manual labor, his face lined with deep furrows even when he was young. There was a strong physical resemblance between father and son, but he and Nimdok had had little in common otherwise. He used to tell stories of his grandfather, how he had lived to be over a hundred and got so desperate to die that one day he went out into a field and swung an ax until his heart gave out. Something similar happened to Deronda, though the heart attack had come without warning when he was home alone. The autopsy revealed a congenital heart defect that had gone unnoticed—a ticking time bomb thumping away in his father’s chest for almost half a century.

His mother Nimue could never get rid of her stubborn farmgirl accent, so she did her best to draw everyone’s attention to her immaculate appearance instead. Her embrace meant the smell of perfume and cosmetics, the feel of silk or satin and luxurious furs against his cheek. Although somewhat neurotic, she eventually took over the family business and had less and less time for her family. She was killed in a speeder collision that could’ve been easily avoided, had she been paying attention. When they pried open the wreckage, she was still clutching her comm in her hand.

<What about your parents? What were they like?>

Arimanes rolled over on his side. He wished he could ignore the ghost, but he knew it was no use. Nimdok would keep badgering him until they both fell asleep, and that wasn’t going to be anytime soon.

So he sent the ghost a foggy childhood memory. Arimanes was a boy of seven, an awkward, gangly-limbed gray thing with eyes like black marbles set in wet clay. He staggered across an overgrown field, the too-tall blades of grass whipping his knees, and looked across the way to the house on a hill.

In a room within that house, Tammuz Hoole was sitting before Arimanes’ parents and telling them that their son was a prodigy. He should be fostered and groomed from a young age, for he held the promise of a long and illustrious career as a scientist or a scholar. The Boschs were already old when their marriage had finally produced a child, and neither fully grasped what Tammuz was saying. Their Ari, a genius? Whatever you say, Mr. Hoole. He needs a mentor? Well, I’m sure you have it covered.

And just like that, they sent him away. He had not understood what was happening. As time passed and his parents didn’t come to pick him up and take him home, he began to see it as a rejection. How could he not? He had loved them. They were his mother and his father. Why had they abandoned him? Didn’t they love him?

Yet they had attended every milestone in his education, every graduation, every conference, every awards ceremony. With smiles on their faces they had congratulated him, these people that he hardly knew. And he suspected that they were congratulating each other for giving their only child a good education, even if it had cost them their relationship with him.

<So you had a miserable childhood. Who didn’t?>

<Inanna didn’t.> Arimanes retorted, though he no longer had the will to turn it into an effective barb against Nimdok. <I used to envy her. I was jealous of everything she had—her power, her family, her happiness and contentment. But I never let her see it, because I was afraid I would lose the little taste of those things I got from being her friend.>

<You never really cared about her, then.>

<I don't care about anyone. That’s your job. You're the lover, I'm the fighter.>

<Surely it can’t be that black and white…>

<Some things are. And sometimes you have to get as far away from the past as you can, and don’t ever come back. I accepted that a long time ago. I don’t feel anything for my parents anymore.>

<Then why are you in such a foul mood?>

<Because I came here for nothing. This Pygar kid, he’s taken the spot I had hoped to put Miri in. More than that, he’s put the only family I have left in grave danger. Congratulations, you got your wish—I have no choice but to take Miri with me when I leave.>

Sensing Nimdok’s internal smirk, he wished the spirit had a separate neck so that he could wring it. Instead, he simply shut his eyes and tried to get some sleep.

 

[Inanna Harth]

Three Hours Later

Now it was Lilith’s turn to pace the living room floor, wringing her hands and sighing. At last she turned to her husband and blurted, “I wish you would talk to him!”

Tammuz looked up from his computer screen. He was still poring over the files, though Pygar had ceased to assist him. The Sithspawn was sitting a few feet away with a datapad in his lap, reading up on Shi'ido customs.

“He wants to be alone,” Tammuz replied with a shrug before turning back to his work.

Lilith crossed the room until she stood behind his chair, looking over his shoulder. “What are you going to do with all this?”

“I was thinking about destroying it,” he murmured. “Can’t risk it falling into the wrong hands.”

“But the Sith will come anyway!”

“Indeed.” Scratching his chin, the old patriarch asked, “Did you call Mulciber?”

“I said I would, didn't I?” she replied haughtily. Mulciber was their third son and a pioneer in the field of genetic research, particularly when it came to the Shi’ido genome. No doubt he would find Vandiir's monsters very interesting. “He’s on his way now. Have you considered telling Ari about this?” She gestured to the screen.

“As long as I can avoid it, I won’t tell him at all.” At Lilith’s puzzled look, he added, “The Arimanes I knew would look at these files and want to join Adrian Vandiir in creating new life. He wouldn’t care by what artifice it was done. He would just see the potential to push the boundaries of what’s possible.”

Lilith gaped at him in astonishment. “I can’t believe you would say that. I can’t believe you would even think that—”

“You didn’t know Arimanes as well as I did,” Tammuz countered. “I was his teacher. I saw how his mind worked.” He looked as if he was about to say more on the subject of how Arimanes’ mind worked, but instead he just shook his head in bitter disappointment. “Lilith, if only you knew how many hopes and dreams I pinned on him… You want to talk about invoking ish’ken for Pygar, well, I almost invoked it for Arimanes. Many times I considered filing for adoption, becoming his Uncle Hoole, but every time I had only to ask him a question, and his answer would make me think twice about it.”

He was breathing hard, unusually impassioned. Lilith took his hand in his, stroking it soothingly.

“What was the question?”

"I don't remember." He brought her hand to his mouth and kissed it, then pressed it against his cheek. “We were once a primitive, superstitious people,” he said. “The Shi’ido believed in reincarnation, that the souls of the dead are reborn in new flesh and live again, making the same mistakes, committing the same evils, until eventually we learn better...”

He shut his eyes. “I am not a scientist at heart, Lili. In fact, I have more than a touch of the pagan in me, as shocking as it may seem. I entertained certain notions that my ancient forebears would’ve found perfectly plausible. I dreamed that Arimanes was Mammon reborn, and I saw him falling for the same trap that ensnared my grandfather. That all-consuming desire to create life…”

“Were they that much alike?” she whispered. Lilith never had the chance to meet Mammon Hoole, who died before she met her husband. But Tammuz had told her many stories of his grandfather’s wisdom, intelligence, and kindness.

“As Adrian Vandiir is to Borborygmus Gog,” he replied. Gog was Mammon’s former colleague, another Shi’ido scientist who blackened the reputation of his species as much as Mammon uplifted it. Upon his name hung the Empire-approved genocide of Kiva, and all the destruction and suffering inflicted through Project Starscream, which may very well have laid the foundation for Vandiir's own experiments.

“Arimanes seemed aware of my expectations,” Tammuz went on, releasing Lilith’s hand. “He deliberately applied to the Chandrilan Academy of Sciences, knowing Mammon had studied there. And then he disappeared, just as Mammon did…”

“And now he has returned with an adopted child, just as Mammon adopted Tash and Zak.” She crossed her arms. “Stranger coincidences have happened, dear.”

Turning away from her, he grumbled to himself, “I don’t believe in coincidences.”

Over the course of their exchange, Pygar, feeling distinctly uncomfortable amid the intimate setting, quietly got up from his chair and went outside onto the deck. Darkness had descended upon the jungle, which was now filled with the chirps and growls of nighttime predators and insects. Even in the evening, it was oppressively humid. The cool blue water of the pool beckoned to the Sithspawn, who shed his clothes and dove in, swimming laps around the perimeter. Anything to get his mind off of what had happened and what could happen.

Ten minutes later, the ambient jungle sounds were undercut by the rumble of a speeder approaching. Parking at the front of the house, the Shi'ido rider sprouted a pair of wings and flew up to the third floor rather than taking the stairs. Appearing as a tall marble-skinned humanoid male, Mulciber Hoole alighted on the deck near the pool, where a startled Pygar immediately sank lower into the water, not sure if he was friendly or not.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to scare you there." Chuckling, Mulciber absorbed his birdlike wings back into his body. He was cradling what appeared to be a... miniature tauntaun? The tiny creature was squirming in his arms, and when he finally put it down it bounded over to Lilith, shrieking happily.

"Oh!" she exclaimed, bending down to give the creature a hug around its little neck. "Mulciber, I didn't know you were going to bring her with you..."

"Well, it's not a school night, so I figured why not?" Mulciber embraced his mother, then went to greet his father.

"I wish you hadn't," Tammuz remarked, clasping his son's hand in salute. "It may be dangerous here now."

Mulciber's brow furrowed. "Dangerous? Who would dare threaten the Hoole family in their own home?..."

Since they were speaking their native language, Pygar could no longer understand them. The Sithspawn climbed out of the pool and stood there dripping, feeling even more alienated than before. Luckily Lilith took notice and fetched him a towel.

"Don't be shy. Come on over and join us," she said. "Not to worry—once the initial greetings are over, it's back to business in Basic."

The tiny tauntaun had also taken a liking to Pygar and bounded over, nearly taking out his knees with a horned headbutt in the process. He moved out of the way, not sure what the creature wanted from him.

Even before Pygar reached the gathering, Tammuz was already introducing him. "This is Pygar. Inanna has semi-officially adopted him. Pygar, this is my son Mulciber."

"Notice the family resemblance?" Mulciber joked, placing his head beside his father's for comparison. Tammuz rolled his eyes even as he cracked a small, thin smile. "And this little one is Ashmedai," he said, gesturing to the tiny creature that was still circling Pygar's feet. "Hey, Ash! Stop harassing him!"

The miniature tauntaun clearly just wanted attention. Having by now accepted the weirdness of the situation, Pygar complied, scooping her up and flopping into a chair. There Ash sat contentedly on his knee, her head held high and her hooves tucked neatly underneath her body while he scratched behind her ears.

"She's been stuck on that form for the last three days," Mulciber said, sounding more exhausted than amused. "Refuses to change back. We have to carry her around everywhere." He grinned. "I heard Ari was back in town. What's that all about? Is he the one threatening you?"

"If he is, he's not doing a very good job of it," Lilith answered quickly. "He's resting now. He's had a long journey."

"I'll bet," Mulciber remarked. "Fifty years of nothing, and all of a sudden he turns up out of the blue." He lowered his voice. "He isn't after money, is he?"

"No, no." Tammuz shook his head. "He's just visiting. Brought his little girl with him, too."

Mulciber's eyebrows rose. "Fifty years can really change a man, huh?" He glanced over at his own daughter. "Maybe she and Ash can play together sometime."

"Probably not tonight." Turning back to his computer, Tammuz gestured for Mulciber to follow. "I called you here because I wanted to show you something very, ah, peculiar. Pygar brought it to us, all the way from the Sith Empire. I'm sure you can see the danger in that..."

 

[Jacen Nimdok]

Despite his troubled state of mind, Arimanes did eventually succumb to exhaustion. The journey from Saleucami to Lao-mon had taken over a week, and he found it difficult to sleep in a shuttle bunk.

But his much-needed slumber was interrupted by the sound of the door sliding open, followed by tiny bare feet scurrying across the floor to the side of the bed.

“Daddy, there’s a monster in my room,” Miri whimpered.

Arimanes, groggy and annoyed at being awoken after only a few hours of sleep, was happy to hand the reins over to Nimdok, who promptly reached out to her. The girl burrowed under the covers, hugging up to his side. He could feel her tiny body trembling.

“What kind of monster?” he asked, wrapping his arms protectively around her.

“It went inside my head when I woke up, and could see what I was thinking about,” she explained. “It was trying to make me think about stuff specifically.”

“Like what?”

“It wanted to know about somebody named Pygar, but I didn’t know who that was, and the monster got mad at me.”

He sat up at once and turned on the lights. Miri clung to him desperately, still shaking from the ordeal. Shock was now giving way to tears as she began to cry in terror.

“Where did you hear the name 'Pygar'?” he asked, holding her tightly.

“The monster told me.”

“Sweetheart, did you see the monster, or did you only feel it?” he whispered.

“It’s in my room,” she sobbed. “Don’t go in there, please. I don’t want the monster to eat you.”

“Why would it eat me?”

“It said it would if it couldn't find Pygar…”

With his weak connection to the Force, he projected Jedi-like calm and serenity. Miri was too young to know how to regulate her emotions, but if she sensed that he wasn’t afraid, she could derive comfort from it. Gradually the tears ceased to flow, and she wiped them away, sniffling.

Now to deal with the monster. Stretching out, he could sense Tammuz, Lilith, Pygar, and the other guests upstairs, but he couldn’t feel anything coming from Miri’s room or the surrounding area. If the monster was a blank in the Force, he would’ve been able to feel the edges of the void, but that wasn’t the case either. Whatever it was, the thing could hide itself from Force users.

He turned back to Miri. “I want you to go upstairs,” he said. “Miss Inanna's parents are up there, you'll be safe with them. I’ll take care of the monster.”

Rather than crying again or making a fuss, Miri nodded her head and did as she was told, scurrying down the hall and up the stairs. Over the course of their travels together, she had learned to trust in his ability to keep any and all monsters at bay. He intended to keep that trust.

Once she disappeared from view, he crossed the deserted hallway cautiously, taking care that his footsteps made no sound. The door to what had been Inanna’s bedroom was open, but it was pitch black inside. He heard a low rumble of distant thunder—a storm was brewing far away over the sea.

Adjusting his eyes to accommodate the near total darkness, Arimanes entered the room and looked around. The door to the veranda was open, but the brise-soleil was closed. Since it seemed like the most obvious hiding place, he checked the closet. Nothing. Creeping forward, he walked the length of the veranda, but felt no hidden presences hiding there.

Returning to the room proper, he approached the bed. The sheets were disturbed from Miri’s sleep. He lifted the mattress, checking underneath the bed, but there was nothing to see there.

Nimdok’s ghost was metaphorically leaning forward, straining to see what Arimanes might’ve missed. He walked around the end of the bed again, looking for inconsistencies—a rippling in the air that would indicate some form of invisibility, or a clue as to where the monster had been when the mental interrogation of Miri had taken place.

Standing still, he brought the image of Pygar’s face to the forefront of his mind. If the thing was listening to his thoughts, he would tease it mercilessly. A moment passed, and he began to feel a gnawing along the edges of his psyche. He added to the image the sound of Pygar’s voice, his words from earlier, they’re hunting me down now because I stole a Sith Lord’s data.

The gnawing became biting, a glutton slavering for more.

<Where is he? The traitor cannot be allowed to live. Hand him over... and I will be merciful...>

Arimanes’ eyes traveled up, tracing the teeth marks to their source. There! A slight shimmer in the air above, hanging from the rafters. A crystal snake, its scales making it appear transparent by refracting light.

Sensing that it had been discovered, the serpent abandoned its invisibility and dropped down onto the bed. Arimanes stared at it as the creature began to shift. Though he was on Lao-mon, the very homeworld of the Shi’ido, somehow he knew that the thing twisting and warping on the bed was not one of his own kind. This was something else entirely, a predatory, bestial thing full of base lusts and gruesome needs.

Arimanes was equally astonished by how swiftly and completely Nimdok’s ghost seized control over his body. The thing was still changing form when Nimdok lunged forward, fists connecting with flesh and bone and sinew, pummeling and tearing and snarling at the thing in sheer blind fury.

The Doppelganger hissed in pain and darted away. By now it had become a strange creature with iridescent skin and jagged teeth too large for its delicate head. But it was still changing, turning into something larger and entirely different, jaws snapping threateningly. Nimdok responded in kind, tapping into Arimanes’ skinshifting abilities.

<Nimdok, let me handle this! You don't know what you're doing!> Arimanes tried to stop him, only to feel a psychological barrier slamming down between himself and the ghost, jamming him further into the backseat of his own mind. Nimdok, the enraged father determined to protect his child, had created a subconscious wall between them.

<This thing is mine.>

 

[Inanna Harth]

As they read through the stolen files together, Mulciber’s mood gradually shifted from lighthearted gaiety, to shock and horror, before finally culminating in the same righteous anger his father shared.

“Where did you get this information?” he demanded, whirling around to face Pygar. “Who is responsible for these monstrosities?”

Pygar hesitated, left without words by the look of pure disgust, hatred, and fear in the Shi’ido’s obsidian eyes. While still paying attention to what was going on around him, the Sithspawn had successfully lulled the rambunctious Ash to sleep with gentle strokes from her head to her back. Mulciber, completely focused on the files, hadn’t taken much notice of what Pygar had been doing until now. Seeing his daughter in the lap of one such “monstrosity” prompted him to seize the miniature tauntaun on reflex. The child stirred, jolted from sleep, and began to bleat in annoyance, wriggling in her father’s grasp.

Lilith flinched. “Mulciber, regardless of what’s been done to him, Pygar has been victimized by the Sith. All of the creatures listed in the files were normal once. Just because they’ve been altered doesn’t mean they—”

“I know, Mother,” Mulciber interrupted, holding Ash closer to him. “I know. But that still doesn’t answer my question.” He looked at Pygar again, this time with a considerably cooler gaze. “Who did this to you?”

“His name is Adrian Vandiir,” Pygar replied. “He’s currently serving as Dark Councilor of Scientific Advancement in the Sith Empire.”

“What an appropriate title,” Tammuz murmured sarcastically. “I take it he has all the resources of the Empire at his disposal, as well as free rein to do as he pleases without consequence?”

Pygar nodded. “As for how I got the data, the original escape plan was to simply smuggle me to Lao-mon. That’s all that happened as far as Inanna knows.” He took a deep breath, preparing to deliver the bad news. “But at the last minute, just before I was set to leave Dromund Kaas, I decided to try and find out who I was before the experiments. I wanted to know if there was any record that could tell me my true name, or if I had any family out there who might be looking for me…”

He shook his head, swallowing his rising emotions in order to keep talking. “Faya helped me. She was as curious to find out as I was. We couldn’t find anything, but the data about the experiments was all there, right at my fingertips. At the very least, I could take it with me. So I stole the files and ran all the way here. But it’s much harder to cover your tracks when you steal than when you’re only browsing. I’m sure by now Vandiir has already sent the Inquisitorial death squads and Doppelgangers after me. And if they know where I am, they’ll come here, and they won’t stop until I’m dead—”

All attention was drawn away from the monologuing Sithspawn as Miri appeared at the top of the stairs. Clad in only her underwear, the little girl approached cautiously, radiating fear.

“Hello,” Lilith greeted the girl gently. “What’s the matter, little one?”

Tammuz was struck by the girl’s unnatural Force sensitivity and raw power. She broadcasted her emotions like a beacon, her feelings becoming the feelings of those around her. The old patriarch tapped into her Force energies, and received a thousand splintered images in response. He barely managed to cut through the overwhelming feedback, catching her latest memories amid the jumbled pieces.

“There is an intruder downstairs,” he announced in a low voice, rising from his chair and hurrying over to the stairwell. “Arimanes has gone to face it alone, the fool…”

“We’ll protect you,” Lilith said softly, crouching down and beckoning to Miri with open arms. The little girl was hesitant to accept her embrace, preferring that of her father. But he was busy fighting below.

Pygar knew what was coming. He was trembling, but when the time came they wouldn’t break his spirit.

“If I die, don’t let it be in vain,” he said, addressing no one in particular. “You get those files out as soon as you can. I want them available everywhere, all over the Holonet. I want the entire galaxy to be able to see what he did—what he’s still doing. Maybe then someone will—”

A tremendous crash from down below cut him off in mid-sentence, followed by the whistle of air as a large, heavy object shot upwards. Pygar turned, believing he was about to face his doom. With his good eye's keen sight he glimpsed two dark figures cutting across the night sky, the stars winking out as they passed over them. But they were moving away from the house, not towards it...

“Arimanes!” Tammuz hissed, running back up the steps he had just barely begun to descend. Rushing out onto the deck, he transformed almost instantly into an enormous drexl and shot like a bullet after the departing figures. Lilith too turned away from Miri, shifting into some variation on a Diathim and following her husband outside into the night.

Yanking the data chip out of the computer, Mulciber absorbed it into his wrist, then handed Ash back to Pygar, any hostility between them forgotten. “Get the children out of here,” he said. “Go into the mountains, stay out of sight. Take my speeder.” He tossed the Sithspawn the keys, then raced after his parents, his body becoming dragon-like as he took to the skies.

Pygar stared after them in shock. He had braced himself for death, but now that he had been given a second chance at life, the calm acceptance of his own demise was rapidly being replaced by adrenaline and a profound will to survive. Glancing at Miri, then at Ash, it sank in that he was now responsible for their safety as well as his own.

“...Okay, let’s go,” he murmured, taking Miri by the hand and hurrying down the stairs.

By the time he reached the bottom, Ash had become much heavier, her body elongating as she slowly shifted. When she began to squirm, Pygar set her down on the floor, waiting impatiently for her to change form.

“We really don’t have time for this,” he said, not sure if Ash could even understand what he was saying.

Miri, who had seen Inanna skinshift, as well as hints that her father could do the same (despite Arimanes’ attempts to hide his true nature from her) was not at all put off by the sight of the tauntaun turning suddenly into a black-skinned, golden-haired little girl about the same age and height as her. Ash then took Pygar’s other hand in hers, and both children looked up at him expectantly.

“Well, off we go then—” The Sithspawn started forward, only for the girls to hold him back.

“There are bad people outside,” Miri said softly. "They're wearing black Mandalorian armor. They want to kill you."

Black Mandalorian armor? Had to be Saarishash Purification Legionnaires, better known as Inquisitorial death squads. Pygar cursed under his breath and pulled the girls into one of the bedrooms to hide for the time being. Looking at the kids, a haphazard plan formed in his mind...

“Ash, I need you to make yourself look like her,” he said, pointing to Miri. “That way we can say you’re identical twin sisters.”

Ash evidently did understand Basic, because she immediately did as he asked. Pygar was soon looking at two Miris, each with buoyant dark curls, deep-set brown eyes, and slightly pointed ears.

“Now I’ve got to make myself look like your dad,” Pygar said. Taking a deep breath, the Changeling braced himself for the pain of transformation. It didn’t make it hurt any less, but for his suffering he took on the shape and semblance of Nimdok.

Exhaling slowly, he pulled the scarf off his head. He was able to make his right eye appear undamaged, but he couldn’t see through it. For the purposes of this exercise, his lack of depth perception shouldn’t be a problem—at least, not until he got behind the wheel of Mulciber’s speeder.

Taking the blanket from the bed, he draped it around both girls. “If they try to talk to you, say that we were spending the night here, visiting our friends,” he whispered. (Man, did Nimdok have a deep voice!) “But now that things are getting crazy, we’re going home.” He held up the keys. “Got it?”

The twins nodded.

“If anything happens, you two stick together,” he said, easing the door open. “Now, follow my lead..."

 

[Inanna Harth]

Black-feathered wings unfurled against the night sky, blotting out the stars. In the form of the Samovaran icarus, Nimdok held the Doppelganger aloft by the throat, dragging it up high above the trees, above the clouds, way into the stratosphere.

The Doppelganger sprouted a set of hard fin-like appendages for better maneuvering in the harsh winds, then set upon him like a feral beast. Nimdok’s avian wings were ill-suited for the stratosphere; he was buffeted by gales that sent him spinning end over end through the air. Dizzy and disoriented, he had no choice but to drop back into the troposphere with the Doppelganger in hot pursuit.

So far Nimdok had managed to avoid being bitten by the Sithspawn’s jagged teeth, but the fight was about to turn into an aerial wrestling match. Dodging out of the way, he circled around the Doppelganger, who hissed with laughter.

<I will digest you until there is nothing left! I will feast upon your daughter’s thoughts until she is nothing but a mindless husk! I will—>

The Doppelganger’s telepathic taunts were interrupted as Nimdok suddenly pounced. Strong and thick-veined hands took hold of the howling Doppelganger’s head while sharp white thumbs gouged out its eyes. Temporarily blinded, the Doppelganger snapped furiously at Nimdok’s throat.

<Arimanes!> Tammuz called through the Force. He could see the two sparring in midair, bathed in pale moonlight. The sight baffled him. He had never known Arimanes to be so foolhardy as to attack an unknown enemy alone.

Nimdok had no idea what he was doing or what was the best way to kill the Doppelganger. He only wanted to take his anger out on it, destroying it piece by piece until there was nothing left. It was his revenge for Miri—for all that had ever happened to her at the hands of the Sith.

Arimanes of course was locked in the back of his mind, unable to do anything but watch and cringe at Nimdok’s attempts to fight the Doppelganger. <Have you gone insane? You’re going to get us both killed!>

The Doppelganger chomped down on his wrist, having managed to maneuver its jaws across its head to the appropriate position. Nimdok reared back, shoving the Sithspawn away with a cry of pain. Black blood trickled from the wound in a steady stream.

<The storm, Ari! Lightning is their weakness!> Tammuz persisted. His drexl form flew forward, massive teeth exposed threateningly in an effort to draw its attention away from the icarus.

Lilith and Mulciber likewise entered the fray. While she circled around the Doppelganger in a wide arc, jabbing it each time she drew near and darting away before it could bite her, Mulciber tossed his head, gathering flames in his throat. They were cooler in temperature than the legendary Arkanian dragon was supposedly capable of, with a shorter blast range, but they still smarted.

Soon to be overwhelmed by these three new threats, the Doppelganger chose to ignore them all, concentrating on Nimdok. It lunged at him, sinking poisoned fangs into his flesh. He gasped, any screams dying in his throat as the Sithspawn pumped a neurotoxin into his body.

Releasing its hold on him, the Doppelganger flung him away—only to suddenly thrust forward again. With long, sharp claws, it sliced the paralyzed icarus’ wings off with a single clean cut and devoured them whole.

He fell. Lilith tried to catch him, but the Doppelganger set after her like a predator chasing new prey. She darted out of the way at the last second, but the Sithspawn wouldn’t give up the chase. Or at least, it wouldn’t have had Tammuz not set upon him.

With a roar, the Hoole family patriarch slammed into the back of the Sithspawn, pinning it between its massive jaws. Drexl teeth, the smallest of which are as big as a human arm, should have shredded the Doppelganger, but its body became jellylike and drooled out between the cracks. Mulciber countered this escape by unleashing the fire in his belly; the Doppelganger screamed in agony, but ultimately reformed into a solid mass and flew out of the inferno before it could be incinerated.

The storm was approaching. Lilith was closest to the Doppelganger. Snarling, she grabbed the unnatural creature’s head between her hands. Wrapping her legs around the Sithspawn’s torso, she used them as leverage and yanked upward as hard as she could.

It shrieked as the tendons in its neck popped, flesh tearing and vertebrae snapping. Yet the Doppelganger did not die even as its headless body tumbled to the earth. She shrieked as the Doppelganger continued to snap at her, flinging it away.

The head was caught up by the reptilian claws of Mulciber’s dragon. Flapping leathery wings, he carried it up into the swollen gray clouds, tilted his body forward, and released the severed head into the maelstrom.

Lightning flashed, followed by thunder. The head emerged from the cloud seconds later, tumbling out like an abused huttball. By this point it was most likely very dead, but just to be sure, Tammuz swooped down and caught it between his teeth again, pulverizing its skull—and then swallowing what was left of the cranial mush.

 

[Inanna Harth]

“Halt!”

Pygar did as ordered, coming to a complete standstill on the ground floor deck of the house. He had barely taken a step when dozens of lights suddenly trained on him, shining harshly in his face and the faces of the two little girls walking in front of him.

The Legionnaires had surrounded the building, clustering around both the lower entrances. Their black armor blended in with the darkness of the nighttime jungle, so that they moved like shadows in the underbrush.

“Who are you, and what’s your business here?” a female voice demanded, partially muffled by a beskar helmet.

“I’m Professor Tom Kovack of the Chandrilan Academy of Sciences,” Pygar replied, doing his best to sound merely confused and frightened rather than show his true terror. “I’m a friend of the Hooles. My daughters and I were spending the night here as guests when we were awoken by an intruder—are you the police?”

“We have been sent to deal with the intruder, yes,” the female trooper said coolly. “What are you doing out here?”

“We’re leaving, obviously,” Pygar replied. “It’s not safe to be here anymore. I'd rather spend the night in a motel than risk someone getting hurt.”

“Where are the Hooles now?”

“They were up in the third floor living room, last I saw them. Perhaps you should go in and speak to them, they should be able to tell you everything that happened. We were asleep when they found the burglar, or whoever it is. He was hiding in one of the spare bedrooms.”

While the others were still shining their lights at the trio, the female officer strode across the deck toward them. “I’m going to need some ID,” she said, holding out her hand.

Pygar swallowed, then pretended to search his pockets for a wallet. “I… I seem to have forgotten it.” He held up the keys to Mulciber’s speeder. “I only thought to grab my keys.”

“Driving without a license is a crime.”

“Obviously I had no intention of breaking the law," he said, shrugging. "With all the chaos, and being awoken in the middle of the night, the only thing I thought about was my children's safety. I'm sure you can understand...”

She glanced down at Miri and Ash, who were huddled together under the blanket. “Identical twins,” she murmured. “Double trouble. You must have your hands full, Mr. Kovack.”

“Dr. Kovack,” he corrected mildly. “I have a doctorate.”

“Dr. Kovack,” she repeated, an audible smirk in her tone. “We can’t let you drive off without your license. But if you’re so concerned about there being an intruder in the house, we’d be more than happy to have one of our officers retrieve it for you.”

“Oh no—that won’t be necessary,” Pygar blurted, trying to salvage the rapidly unraveling situation. “I can get it myself, if you could send in a couple of guys to walk me through the house safely...”

The female officer hesitated, then signaled the others. Two men approached, their weapons drawn and ready. “Escort Dr. Kovack,” she ordered them. “Will these couple of guys be sufficient?”

Pygar smiled thinly in faux gratitude. He had no idea what he was doing, but he did know that once they suspected something was off about him, the jig would be up. They’d whip out the electrostaff and zap him back to his natural form before he had a chance to keep bullshitting.

Turning toward the stairs, one trooper in front of him and the other following behind, he spared a reassuring glance at Miri and Ash. “I’ll be back in a few minutes, okay? You stay right here.”

The girls nodded. The one consolation he could take from this botched situation was that the troopers couldn’t hurt them. They would be safe regardless of what happened next.

As Pygar and his escorts made their way up to the second floor, he weighed his options. If the Hooles had any weapons stockpiled in their home, he didn’t know where they were. He’d have to rely on his knowledge of his own belongings and capabilities.

“Right this way,” he said, gesturing down the hall. “I was sleeping in the guest room when I suddenly heard this tremendous crashing noise from one of the other rooms…”

They passed Inanna’s room. The door was malfunctioning and remained open, revealing the disarray caused by Nimdok’s fight with the Doppelganger. From the looks of it, they had struggled briefly before one of them forced the other out onto the veranda, then crashed through the brise-soleil, which was the source of the noise they had heard a floor above. One of the troopers whistled at the sight.

“I didn’t really get a good look at it until now, you see, because I immediately ran from my room to the girls’ room down there,” Pygar gestured. “I made sure they were all right, and then Mulciber appeared—he’s the Hooles’ son, a geneticist. He told me Tammuz had found someone in his daughter's old bedroom. She's been missing for many years, and they're very particular about people disturbing her belongings, so you can imagine how upset they were…”

He opened the door to the guest room. The front officer checked the place out, making sure there was nothing lying in wait for them inside, then motioned for them to enter. Pygar grabbed his bag, hefted it up onto the bed, and started rummaging through it. Out of the corner of his eye, he took note of the positions of each officer. One was conveniently closer to him than the other.

“...aha, here it is,” he said, holding up his wallet. Inside was a fake ID, but not for “Tom Kovack”. If they saw it, it would clearly expose him as a liar. With his other hand he grasped the heated vibrodagger he had paid for with the last of his credits and his right eye, and prayed the weapon would prove a worthy investment.

Turning around, he held out his wallet with one hand—and buried the blade in the closest trooper’s throat with the other. At the flick of a switch, the dagger instantly heated to flesh-cauterizing temperatures. The heat weakened the woven fabric, and the dagger cut the rest of the way through.

Discarding his wallet, he pulled the dying soldier forward, using him as a shield while the other opened fire. Charging forward, he flung the limp corpse at the other trooper, grabbed the dead one’s discarded blaster rifle off the floor, and unleashed a torrent of fire on the survivor.

His aim was off due to his lack of depth perception, but that hardly mattered in such close quarters. At least one of the shots hit the mark, and the trooper fell down and stayed down.

The others would have heard the blaster fire and would be charging up the stairs any second. Pygar wasted no time, running out of the room and racing up to the third floor. He burst out onto the deck, breathing hard and still clutching the blaster rifle.

Perhaps this was the end of the line for him. He had nowhere to go, no place to hide. All he could hope for was a miracle rescue. Or a Hoole rescue—that would do just fine as well.

“Hey!” he screamed at the heavens, hoping one of them could hear him. “Help! They’re after me!”

He still looked and sounded like Nimdok, though his night vision was in effect in this darkness, making his eyes appear milky white. Forcing himself through the painful transformation, he became only Pygar again, a terrified Changeling with nowhere left to go.

“Tammuz! Lilith! Mulciber! Somebody help!—”

He felt wind on his back and heard the flapping of leathery wings somewhere in the darkness above. Before he could look up, clawed hands grabbed him under the arms and lifted him up into the air. But rather than carrying him away to safety, the claws released him directly above the swimming pool.

Sputtering and flailing in the water, he came up for air just in time to glimpse a dragon landing on the deck, placing itself between him and the Sith legionnaires that were stomping up the steps. Pygar understood, held his breath, and ducked back underwater. From there he could see the flames of the dragon’s breath reflecting across the surface above him as it burnt the death squad to a crisp.

 

[Jacen Nimdok]

He fell.

Nimdok, at last realizing that the situation was truly life-or-death for them both, had handed control back over to Arimanes as soon as he began to feel the poison. But for all his fighting spirit, there was little Arimanes could do. Both souls were soon submerged in a murky paralysis, coupled with bodily shock from the snipping of his wings—such a sudden massive loss of the “hidden flesh” that made skinshifting possible for Shi’ido was incredibly dangerous and taxing on his strength.

Now the trees closed in over his head as he tumbled through the jungle, hitting every branch and bramble on his way down. He slammed into the ground with teeth-rattling, bone-breaking force, and could do nothing but lay there as the poison took effect.

Black blood was pooling in the dirt around him, leaking from his back and mingling with the greenish, slimelike neurotoxin as it trickled from the bite between his neck and shoulder. If the poison didn’t kill him, he was going to bleed to death. That is, assuming one of the large predators Lao-mon was known for didn’t get to him first. At this point, Arimanes would have welcomed a swifter death than slowly draining out in the mud.

<No!> Came the pathetic inner voice of Nimdok. <We can’t die! We have to live for Miri, for your quest, for the Jedi, for Elise!...>

Were he not paralyzed, Arimanes would have laughed. <Elise? Really? If that vamp were here right now, she’d probably be lapping up my blood.>

<She would at least draw the poison out first.> This was Nimdok attempting a joke. It wasn’t very funny. <If I never come back, don’t you think she’ll wonder what happened to me?>

<What happened to us—I don’t exactly disappear whenever you visit her.> Though he wished he could—watching as a spectator while Nimdok made love to Elise was awkward and uncomfortable at best, boring and tedious at worst. <She’s as cold as death and nigh immortal to boot. I don’t think she’ll care much in the long run. She has the next few thousand years to find somebody else. Hopefully someone less stupid than we are.>

Nimdok’s depression put a dampener on the already arduous process of dying horribly at the bottom of the rainforest. Arimanes’ breaths grew ragged and shallow. His lungs were constricting painfully under the influence of the neurotoxin.

There was a whoosh of air over his body. A drexl landed in the brush near his feet, followed by a fluttering Diathim. The drexl became Tammuz, who immediately knelt at Arimanes’ side.

“The Doppelganger is dead,” he announced. “Completely and utterly destroyed. Why didn’t you wait for us? We would have helped you.”

Arimanes couldn’t speak without choking. Black dots were appearing in the corners of his vision. Tammuz immediately leaned forward, holding Arimanes’ face between his hands.

“Change back,” he commanded. “Your wounds will close, then we can deal with the poison.”

As he spoke, he pressed his own consciousness into Arimanes, trying to help him through the process, bypassing the damage done to his nervous system. When Arimanes still could only struggle feebly, he increased the pressure. “Arimanes, you must change back. If you don’t, you will die. Follow my lead...”

But Arimanes was slipping away. Nimdok squirmed. He had died before, but witnessing the death of another was somehow worse, especially since Arimanes was the only way he’d be able to continue taking care of his daughter. Seizing control of their body again, Nimdok followed Tammuz’s guide. The old patriarch was startled by the second presence he felt replacing the first, but didn’t retract from his mind.

The icarus’ skin began to crawl. White skin faded to olive, long pale hair shortened and darkened. The features of his face grew hawkish, his body changed shape. Tammuz didn’t push him to conjure up clothing. Instead, he lowered his hands to Arimanes’ shoulder, pulling him forward so he could examine his back. The two clean slices running vertically between his shoulder blades had temporarily stopped bleeding.

“His wounds are not closing,” Tammuz said grimly. “He’s lost a great deal of blood. We must get him to a hospital immediately.”

Lilith produced a comm hidden away at the nape of her neck. She spoke into it as Tammuz quickly transformed and picked up Arimanes’ limp body.

“An emergency… badly hurt… poison, a neurotoxin… Yes, he’s still breathing. Barely...”