Bio: Birth and Early Life
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Garn Vakheer was an unexpected result of a very short relationship between Kair Vakheer and Leyari, a Sephi and Firrerreo, respectively. Leyari, his mother, died giving birth to him aboard Kair's ship. The Sephi father, knowing that as a rogue living in debt, raising Garn by himself would not be a good idea, but he didn't want to put his son up for adoption just anywhere. Then, he realized. As he was slightly Force Sensitive himself, he was able to tell that Garn had far more power than he did.
So, Kair journeyed to Corusant, more specifically to the Jedi Temple. Once there, he inquired if Garn was strong enough in the Force to be accepted and trained. A Jedi Master confirmed the above average sensitivity the hybrid showed. Kair reluctantly gave Garn over to the Jedi and left, never to come back. As it turned out, he was attacked by pirates and killed a week later.
When Garn started actual training, he quickly became skilled using both the lightsaber and the Force. Garn eventually found out that he was proficient in using his lightsaber in either hand, though he slightly preferred his right. Later in life, Garn would utilize two lightsabers and master Jar'Kai. He was about average in physical abilities for his age, but he was cunning, and so was able to use tactics in order to win spars.
He had a friendly disposition, and made friends fairly quickly amongst the other Younglings. He did in fact later develop an attraction for one of his best friends, Lasria, an Echani. He was almost universally liked by his peers.
When it came time for Garn to be selected by a Jedi Knight or Master for more advanced training, he grabbed the interest of the recently promoted Master Ylira, a Zeltron. She selected him shortly after his eleventh birthday to be her apprentice.
As a Padawan
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Under the tutelage of Ylira, Garn learned the basics of Niman and Jar'Kai, and was even given another training saber with which to use a couple years later. He found he liked Ylira, as she was free spirited and a lot like himself, being friendly and compassionate to others. A year after Garn became a Padawan, they were sent on their first mission together. He was excited to finally witness the outside galaxy for the first time, but he was nervous at the same time as well. However, with Ylira's support, he overcame the majority of his fear on the journey to Arkania.
It turned out that they were to help settle an argument between three fairly large rival Arkanian businesses. During said negotiations, one of the Arkanian representatives grew angry with what he perceived to be harsh insults from one of the other representatives.
The Arkanian drew a pistol and fired upon the genetically manipulated Offshoot, but the bolt was deflected back at him, destroying the weapon in the process, thanks to the quick reflexes of Ylira. After speaking for a prolonged time to the Arkanian, she calmed him down, allowing the debate to proceed normally.
En route to their second assignment on Corulag several months later, a Dark Jedi and his cohort, a bounty hunter, attempted to steal the ship in order to escape to a place like Nar Shaddaa they could hide at. Before they could jettison all of the passengers, Master Ylira stepped up to combat them. Garn ignored her orders to stay put and disarmed the man in a surprise attack, then ran further back into the ship and hid before the bounty hunter could respond. When he came after Garn, several of the passengers grappled him, allowing the Padawan to pull off his helmet, then knock him out by using a briefcase to hit him on the head multiple times.
In the meantime, Ylira had outmatched the Dark Jedi and killed him. Afterwords, she berated Garn for disobeying, but admitted that without his help, she probably would have been killed by the Dark Jedi and his ally. Once they reached Corulag, they chartered a prison ship to take him back to Corusant for questioning, then continued with their actual mission.
The duo's third and last mission as Jedi together occurred shortly after the Padawan turned thirteen. They were investigating a man on the planet of Null who reportedly had been dabbling in Sith Magic, along with Lasria and Master Sevrin. Once they reached the man's residence, they were assaulted by his wild Force lightning attacks. As he didn't fully understand what he was doing, the Jedi were able to push forward and incapacitate the nobleman.
However, unknown to the four of them, it was all an elaborate setup. The nobleman had been a host for a Derriphan, which took control of Sevrin and forced him to knock Master Ylira, Lasria, and Garn unconscious. The Derriphan-controlled human brought them aboard a hidden ship on the nobleman's property, then caused a prearranged explosion at the man's household which erased any evidence of the conspiracy.
When a team of Jedi lead by Master Quentas-Lir was dispatched to look at the mess, they concluded that the nobleman had gone mad and destroyed the place with uncontrollable Dark Side energy. However, the Draethos wasn't sure that was the right answer. He attempted to track down some leads, and discovered that a ship had taken off shortly before the explosion, and it was registered in the nobleman's name.
Unfortunately, even though the Jedi attempted to locate the vessel or where it had gone, they were unable to find it, since the ship had been destroyed shortly afterwords. As they had nothing else to go on, the case was put on indefinite hold.
66 Years of Hell
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Apprenticeship
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When the ship reached its destination--a small, underground bunker on an obscure Outer Rim world--the one behind the setup was revealed to be an Anzat who had coerced the Derriphan into helping him. They also found that he was not the only one there, as he had been slowly building a cabal of Dark Side users for years, in the form of a few humans and near-humans, and a Nautolan, Kaleesh, Feeorin, and Khil.
Immediately, the Anzat, Lord Trhar, imprisoned the two Padawans and started to torture Master Ylira. He used mental domination in conjunction with Memory Walk and sporadic Force lightning to wear her down, and after a week of continual work, he broke the Jedi. He had an easier time of it than he had with other Masters, as Zeltrons were more susceptible to feeling negative emotions, and he virtually poured malice and hatred into her mind. As he had no use for her, she was given to the Derriphan after it had consumed Sevrin.
Once Trhar had finished, he went to work on Garn and Lasria. Being young, it merely took three days to fully break each of them. Garn was shown his greatest fears, embarrassments, anxieties, and confronted with situation after situation where such things happened and there was nothing he could do to alter the events. Soon enough, he could hardly tell reality from hallucination. The Anzat then moved on to Lasria and did the same.
Shortly after the three Jedi were captured by Trhar, he located and brought two other Force Sensitive youth in their early teens to his lair for training beside Garn, Lasria, and a third who had been recruited before them, creating a quintet of apprentices. Once all five were in no condition to resist, their training began. It was brutal, spanning more than a decade, with several Dark Jedi Knights and Masters training each apprentice.
They drilled lightsaber and force techniques nonstop, and if they hesitated or refused, they were assaulted with lightning or Memory Walks. Any showing of emotion for longing to go back to the Jedi Temple or their homes was punishable by starvation for days on end and Memory Walks during that time period. Oddly enough, at least to Garn, Trhar encouraged Lasria and he to love and feel compassion for each other. Only later would be discover the reason why.
At times, the trainees were subjected to various types of poisons and toxins to bolster their immune system for the future, and so they could know the effects and learn to counteract them.
He became frighteningly adept with Force lightning, later using it to great effect against Rancors, Jedi, and even a krayt dragon. Garn was able to use the Force to create a Repulse effect, which he was taught to master during his training. He also used Force deflection in order to protect himself in case he was disarmed, as well as if his attacker used lightning against him. Another Force power Trhar taught him was Force Flash, which he used in combat and on stealth missions in the wider galaxy. He also became very good while wielding two lightsabers, eventually mastering Jar'Kai.
Garn was taught how to adapt to any situation, and even learned some types of unarmed combat, the most prevalent of which were Teräs Käsi and Echani martial arts. He was also taught many languages to help him on missions, including Sith and Mando'a, the latter of which Trhar learned after ripping the information out of a dying Mandalorian's mind a century or so earlier.
It was during the “training” that Garn learned to fear failure and always strive to be better in any possible way. If he had trouble learning a routine, he was punished. If he lost in a sparring match, he was punished. If he spoke out against his superiors, he was punished. The various methods used to do so were many and very, very painful, soon making Garn into a vicious, unquestioning student.
Often, their Masters would maroon them at a distant location on the planet with nothing, not even their lightsabers and clothing; they would be granted those items for use later on in their training, after they left the small planet. They had to forage for food and search for shelter, all the while heading back to the Dark Jedi base. It was during one of these many tests of survival that one of the one of the other apprentices died. None of the surviving four felt pity for him, instead focusing on bettering themselves so such a thing would not happen to them.
The Dark Jedi cabal relocated nine years into their training to the frozen world of Hoth. There, the apprentices continued to train in the hostile environment, learning valuable survival skills in the process. A year into the training on Hoth, all five apprentices were dropped off several kilometers from the home base in the dead of night. An hour later, a blizzard rolled in. They huddled together in a small furrow in the snow, using the Force to keep themselves from succumbing to the cold.
Shortly after this, while the blizzard was at its peak, the side of the small trench they had created seemed to erupt. A wampa revealed itself, roaring and swiping at them with its claws. Garn reacted quickly, blasting it with a stream of Force lightning and stunning it. He then turned tail and fled with the other three trainees, but a few seconds later, it was revealed that a full pack of wampas was attacking them when two simultaneously grabbed an apprentice and viciously tore his head off.
The three surviving apprentices continued running, and when another wampa presented itself before Garn, he slid below its lunge and cut its stomach open with a lightsaber, then Force pushed it into one of its fellows. The third apprentice full on steamrolled over a wampa that tried to stop him. With the Force aiding his power, he impaled the creature and shoved it away.
A short time later, the three reached a small cave, then worked on bringing the entrance down to prevent the wampas from coming in. While they were doing so, Lasria nimbly dodged a sudden charge from one of the monsters, then harried it with lightning before beheading it. After snow tumbled down to seal the entrance, they resorted to frying the dead wampa with Force lightning, thus providing a slightly burned meal to hold them through the night.
Two years after they arrived at Hoth, they relocated again to Tatooine. The abrupt, complete change in climate shocked Garn slightly, but he quickly adapted to survive on the desert planet. When they were dropped off roughly thirty kilometers away from the current base, they entered a large cavern to shelter themselves for the rapidly approaching night. Unfortunately for the apprentices, it was home to a krayt dragon. When it awoke to find the three smaller beings crouched near the mouth of the cavern, it roared in fury and attacked.
The trio ran out of the cavern and split up, attempting to attack the creature from multiple directions to confuse and wear it down until it was dead. Unfortunately, the third apprentice was severely injured, leaving just Garn and Lasria to combat the krayt dragon. Garn slipped down the side of a dune, and before he could right himself, the krayt dragon attempted to swallow him whole. He used the Force to protect himself from the chomping jaws, but couldn't stop himself from being forced down its throat. During the process, his lightsabers were lost in the churning sand or the krayt dragon's stomach.
Midway down, he drew a knife and stabbed it into the krayt dragon's larynx, and with the aid of the Force, prevented himself from descending fully into the monster's stomach. He electrocuted the dragon and channeled most of the energy through his imbedded knife as he slowly crawled back up its throat. Eventually, when he reached its mouth, he tried to get out, but the stubborn creature clung to consciousness with a fervor and attempted to crush him again. In desperation, he created a sphere of kinetic force that rippled outwards from his body, forcing open its jaws. He sprang out and fell to the sand, weak and in pain but alive.
When the wounded beast tried to stumble back into its cave, Garn and Lasria chased it, eventually jumping onto its back, where the Echani stabbed it in the skull while the Sephi-Firrerreo hybrid shocked and pummeled the dragon with the Force. After a couple more minutes of struggle, the krayt dragon fell to the cave floor, dead. In triumph, Garn cut open its gizzard and took out the krayt dragon pearls there. Afterwords, they brought the third apprentice back into the cavern, but they did not help him; to do so would mean that he was too weak to survive on his own. As it was, he died during the night.
Once the two had returned to the Dark Jedi base, Garn sought to make the krayt dragon pearls the focusing crystals for new lightsaber pair. He cleaned and polished them for some time, then attempted to install the pearls. He failed, and had to start over. He resisted the urge to become frustrated, and instead concentrated on being patient. The second time, he assembled the lightsabers perfectly. More than a month after he started and coincidentally on the day of his twenty-sixth birthday, he was fully attuned to the weapons.
After he created his lightsabers based around the krayt dragon pearls, as a sort of rite of passage for lasting as long as he had and finally crafting his own set of lightsabers, Trhar ordered him to mark his face with the blades. He was permitted to skip over his eyes, so he wouldn't accidentally damage them. He took up his lightsabers, activated them, then took hold of them telekinetically. Garn painstakingly made the tips run down his face, burning deep wounds that would turn into his most prominent scars.
Shortly after their encounter with the krayt dragon and two years after they relocated to Tatooine, the cabal moved elsewhere for the last leg of the two apprentices' training. This time, they went to a remote plateau on Korriban. Lord Trhar had built a hidden base there a few centuries beforehand, and was familiar with the planet and its denizens. After they landed, Garn and Lasria fought through a pack of Tuk'ata to ensure a safe path for their Dark Jedi Masters from the landing pad to the entrance of the base. Once inside, they were confronted by a terentatek that had been kept in stasis for decades.
Garn was injured and poisoned in the battle with the rancor-like creature, but after meditating for a few days, he was able to purge the venom from his system and continue with his training. During the two years on Korriban, they would periodically be attacked by various types of creatures, even fighting and destroying the Derriphan Trhar had used years ago to control Master Sevrin.
As the beginning of the final Trials, after which he would become a Knight if he survived, Garn was put into a deep sleep, and awoke a few days later to find that orbalisks--brought over from Onderon's moon, Dxun--had been attached to him. They covered virtually all of his body, and he could barely breathe. After calming down and controlling his breath, he telepathically asked the Dark Jedi masters how to get the parasites off. They replied that the orbalisks were susceptible to electricity, but if he made a wrong move, the parasites would inject him with a deadly toxin that might very well kill him.
Garn, lying motionless, slowly used Force lightning on the orbalisks covering his face. After a time, he was able to telekinetically remove them, allowing him to breathe freely. He did the same for his arms, torso, then legs. Finally, they were all off, and he was permitted to go into a healing trance to rid himself of any remaining poison. Lasria went through the same ordeal, and finished slightly after Garn.
The first part of the second Trial involved Garn and Lasria being dropped off on Dathomir and left to stay alive for a month. During that time period, they used all the skills they had learned to hunt, forage, and survive in the harsh wilderness. They often encountered Rancors, but after a week of fleeing from the large creatures when they neared, the two apprentices developed an effective hit and run method of attack that eventually culminated in a targeted Rancor's death. They both survived the ordeal, and were hardened by the experience and eager for the next challenge.
Their second part of the Trial was for them to be left on another jungle world for a while, this time Haruun Kal for three months. In some ways, it was more vicious than Dathomir, but tamer in others. Regardless, even after being pursued by akk dogs for weeks on end, they survived, and were taken off the planet when the time came.
A few months after Haruun Kal, Garn learned that Lasria was pregnant with his child. Of course, he found this out the day before the third and last Trial, which is where everything went wrong. Trhar decreed that they were to combat one another for Knighthood, one that must end in the loser's death.
After a lengthy duel that neither wanted to fight, Garn overpowered Lasria, but he refused to kill her. The Anzat Dark Jedi knew the apprentice would do this, so he put his plan into motion. He infiltrated Garn's mind and, as the hybrid was not fully aware of what he was doing, Trhar successfully coerced him. The Anzat spoke to the darkest part of Garn's mind, telling him that it would make him stronger if he had no attachments, if he had nothing to lose. Gradually, he relented, and conceded to Trhar's order. He brutally killed Lasria by ripping their child out of her womb before tearing her throat open, then watching as her life ebbed away on the floor before him.
When it was over, Trhar released his mental grasp on Garn and let him witness the horror of what he had done. Of course, he slightly edited the course of events in Garn's mind, making it seem as though he wanted Garn to kill Lasria quickly and cleanly, but that the apprentice, in the throes of a rage, had murdered her in the most inhumane way as he could think of. The story was easier for Garn to accept because he wasn't completely sane at the time, and so it made sense to him in a horrific, twisted way.
Blood soaked Garn's hands as he fell to his hands and knees. He shook in rage, for he had no one to blame but himself. After a second, he desperately tried to call upon the Light Side of the Force to heal Lasria. He tried to let serenity calm him as he had learned as a Padawan, but nothing happened. Literally. His hands merely quivered. Any thoughts he'd had of abandoning Trhar faded at that instant, for if the Jedi way could not save those who he wanted to live, then it was not worth his devotion.
Dark Knighthood
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Afterwords, Lord Trhar celebrated Garn's achievement of becoming a Dark Jedi Knight by giving him a reward of sorts. Trhar, having been fascinated by the various types of Sith and Mandalorian armors for quite some time, fashioned a set of armor for Garn. It was sleek and protective, but it didn't restrict him very much in combat, especially when he had the Force aiding him.
However, Trhar, being the arrogant megalomaniac he was, would not let Garn have the armor without some sort of sacrifice or homage to himself. He branded the back of the Knight's hands with his symbol, an oblong device that is circular at one end and narrows to form two unconnected ends, with a complex glyph in between. He then branded the bottom of Garn's forearm with a long, spiraling runic line that went from the center of his palm to roughly 14 centimeters before it reaches his elbow. Dark Side energy was used in the creation of the brands, ensuring that they would be burned on permanently, or at the least, be very, very hard to get rid of.
The Master, having a slight measure of mercy tempered with pragmatism, let Garn recoup from the traumatizing events he had experienced for a few months, after which the Knight adjusted to his new armor for a time. Finally, when Garn was twenty-nine, he was given his first true mission. He was to travel to Balosar and assassinate a man who had swindled Trhar during the Anzat's journeys abroad. Garn tracked his quarry through the polluted cities, then found him and executed him by snapping his neck.
Satisfied with the efficient kill, Trhar immediately decided to put Garn's skills to the test against a true opponent. In this case, he was to target a Jedi Investigator who was getting uncomfortably close to uncovering their cabal. In the subsequent Knight on Knight duel, Garn quickly overpowered his opponent and, as per his Master's instructions, made it appear as an accident. He choked the Jedi until he had passed out, then shot him several times with a blaster and took his belongings, making it look at though he had been attacked and outmatched by a bounty hunter or pirate of sorts and robbed.
Three months later, he was sent to kill a Jedi Shadow who had defeated a member of their cabal and was taking him in for questioning. He boarded the transport quietly and ambushed the Shadow. The intense fight was one of the most difficult things Garn had ever done, but he was able to outmaneuver his opponent and brutally electrocute him. He then proceeded to sabotaged the ship's life support. As he passed by the Nautolan Dark Jedi prisoner, Garn beheaded him for failing Lord Trhar.
After this, the Dark Jedi laid low for a year and a half, with Garn eliminating a too-inquisitive Jedi only once in that time period. When they relocated to Hypori, he was given a task of recruiting Force Sensitive youth for training under Trhar. His first stop was Ryloth. As Twi'leks were often sold as slaves there, he would not rouse any suspicion by buying or stealing Force Sensitive children. After a month there, he had recruited two young Twi'leks, and subsequently brought them back to his Master.
Garn next went to Corellia, where he watched the Jedi Force Sensitive child recruiter there take a human toddler with him for eventual training at the Temple. Acting quickly, he snuck up on the Jedi and blinded him, then rapidly overwhelmed him with a flurry of unarmed strikes and put him in a sleeper hold. When the Jedi was unconscious, he took the child and spirited him to Hypori.
His third journey lead him to Cato Nemoidia, which was the area a Jedi Knight and his Padawan were working in. Garn orchestrated an accident that made it look like both of the Jedi fell to their deaths after a mechanical malfunction occurred. However, with quick timing, he rescued the Padawan, but left the Knight to tumble to the ground kilometers below. The Padawan resisted at first, but Garn quickly subdued her.
With the last of the new apprentices recruited, the Dark Jedi cabal went into hiding for a time. Several months later, when Garn was thirty-two, he was sent to assassinate a defective member of the cabal. He chased his elusive target for a year before finally cornering him on Mon Calamari. As the Knight approached the turncoat Khil, Garn deflected or dodged all the attacks that came his way, then summoned an incredibly powerful current of Force lightning. The power lifted the Khil high into the air and sent him plummeting back down into the ocean, where he was telekinetically held under, causing him to rapidly drown.
Finished with his latest task, Garn returned to Hypori to help train the recruits. He took an apprentice himself, namely the Padawan he had kidnapped on Cato Nemoidia. The Togruta, Maere Vona, reminded Garn of Lasria and himself at times, though he distanced himself from her in case Trhar decided he was getting to close to the trainee.
Garn did not go on any more missions for nearly thirteen years, during which he turned Maere into a lethal warrior. She went through many of the same things he did, save for falling in love with a fellow trainee. Garn was grateful for this, though he did not show it. That way, she wouldn't have to kill her loved one in a vicious duel to the death, or watch him die in one of the myriad training exercises.
Maere soon became a deadly warrior, somewhat like Garn. He watched as she passed test after test, more often than not with flying colors. She became the second best apprentice, and usually won against the others during sparring sessions. During their two year tenure on Mygeeto, she survived where the strongest student didn't. The dead apprentice didn't show flexibility, something which the Togruta did. On Tatooine, she again showed her skills, this time by killing an entire band of Sand People basically single-handed when they attacked the small group of trainees.
It was also around this time that Garn went into a period of self-reflection. He gradually regained some of his sanity, but admittedly not much. The biggest happening was that he witnessed a hazy vision of the day he killed Lasria. Even though the events were foggy and he was unable to truly decipher them, it created a spark of doubt in his mind about Lord Trhar. He realized just how unhappy he was, being a cold, emotionless tool for the Anzat to use as he pleased. From that point on, he built up a considerably powerful mental shield, to help prevent any unwanted intrusions; that way, Trhar would not be able to see the doubt in Garn's deep thoughts.
The first mission he went on in almost thirteen years was to Zeltros, in order to threaten the owner of a casino which helped supply Lord Trhar's exploits, though recently the owner had been refusing to do so. As Garn arrived to confront him, the owner contacted security. When they came, their distraction provided him with an exit through a hidden door at the back of his office.
In just under ten seconds, Garn killed the security team, then forced his way through the hidden doorway. He chased the owner, and using his cunning, directed him into an empty room. There, Garn ambushed him. For pulling a vibroknife on the Dark Jedi, he lost three fingers when Garn cut it out of his hand. He gave Trhar's message, then Force choked the man into unconsciousness.
Garn stayed the night in a nearby hotel, and while walking, was confronted by a very persuasive Zeltron who tried to talk him into having a drink or two with her. Part of it was the pheromones, part of it was that he felt curious about drinks, part of it was the pent up emotions, but regardless, he eventually relented. When he woke in the morning, he found out that he had a throbbing headache, the Zeltron who had convinced him to have a few drinks--which in reality was several--was in bed next to him, and his lightsabers were missing.
Furious at letting himself get caught off guard, he retraced his steps, eventually coming to the hotel bar where the bartender had the courtesy to hold on to the lightsabers after he dropped them onto the floor. He thanked the Zeltron briefly, took his lightsabers, then immediately packed and departed from the hedonism-filled planet. From then on, he swore not to imbibe any more alcohol, for it only produced bad results.
At the age of forty-six, after slightly less than fifteen years of almost straight training with his apprentice, he was sent to observe and eventually speak with a Dark Jedi who had managed to track them to their current location. He sought to join their group, and become a servant of Trhar. Based on Garn's reports, the Anzat allowed the man to enter the base. Just before they reached the antechamber for Trhar's throne room, the man attacked Garn. As it turned out, he was a Jedi Shadow who was infiltrating the cabal.
Garn slew the Jedi after a bit, then had to deal with his two companions, who broke into the base and attacked. Apparently, another one of the Dark Jedi had defected, but this one had gone to the Jedi Shadow, who had taken two others with him to deal with the Dark Jedi. Garn was pressed back by the combined assault, barely managing to keep himself from being completely overwhelmed.
One of the members of the cabal came to back him up, putting the battle into a stalemate, until Garn created a flash which blinded one of the Jedi, allowing him to stagger the other two using a quick telekinetic push aided by other Dark Jedi. This enabled them to slip further into the base. As they knew the layout, the two set up a good ambush point. When the Shadows came into the room, Garn shot a barrage of chain lightning at the Jedi, incapacitating one and hurting the other two.
The Dark Jedi duo jumped down to combat the Jedi, and with Garn using superior tactics, they were able to outflank their enemies and maim one. That allowed them to quickly swoop in the disabled Jedi and kill him quickly, then focus all their efforts on the one left standing. He went down after a short but vicious fight, head chopped off and body impaled. The incapacitated Shadow was given a mercy kill in the form of a lightsaber through the heart.
Garn and the other Dark Jedi Knights quickly went to work on erasing all evidence of their existence, first by disposing of the Jedi's corpses, then collapsing the area around the base so it could not be seen. After this, they took the Jedi's shuttle and sold it on the black market. They then relocated to another suitable planet where the apprentices would continue their training. However, Garn's main task was to hunt down the traitor and execute him.
The former Dark Jedi was easier to find than the last one Garn had hunted, and proved to be a lesser challenge, though by that point Garn had become even deadlier with the decades of experience. He brutally ripped the traitor apart on board a transport vessel, and to eliminate any witnesses, he killed all the passengers. He jettisoned the bodies, then went to the cabal's new base.
Once he returned, he saw Maere emerge as the victorious apprentice. She was Knighted, and with her success, Garn was anointed a Dark Jedi Master.
Dark Master Vakheer
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Garn's missions after he became a Master came more sporadically, as Trhar wanted Maere to gain experience in the field. For twenty-nine years, he only went on an actual designated combat mission once every half-decade or so. He mainly traveled the galaxy abroad, occasionally checking on Trhar's contacts, and periodically collecting a Force Sensitive youth for becoming an apprentice.
Three years after he became a Master, when he was fifty, Garn traveled to Yaga Minor to speak with a higher ranking official of the so-called Sith Empire. The Aristocrat desired to learn secrets of the Dark Side from Lord Trhar, and was willing to pay the Dark Jedi handsome sums of credits to do so. Unfortunately for the Aristocrat, he was too weak in the Force to learn what he desired.
Seeing an opportunity, Garn retrieved a book containing basic Dark Side techniques and gave it to the Aristocrat for a large chunk of money. While the Aristocrat was reading the book in the night, Garn dressed himself in Jedi robes, snuck into the mansion, then assassinated the Aristocrat. He took the tome and left, at the same time making sure the surveillance cameras got a good look at his outfit before he disabled them. He returned to Trhar with his prize, then set out again.
A bit more than five years later, Garn was attacked by a Jedi Shadow on Sullust. Despite the Shadow having the advantage in a surprise attack, the Dark Jedi Master was able to hold his own against the Jedi. He gradually maneuvered himself out of a defensive posture and into one where they were fairly evenly matched. In a burst of energy, he drove the Jedi back, then staggered him with a Force push and fled.
He lead the Jedi on a prolonged chase that ended in the other Force user's death when Garn unexpectedly came out of hiding to impale him through the heart with a vibroknife. He took the Jedi's lightsaber, then dumped his body into a lava flow on the surface. After this, he immediately left the planet in case the Jedi had a partner who was following him.
Garn went to Ithor to hide for a time, so as to let his trail go cold if any other Shadows were attempting to trail him. After a full year on the forest-covered planet, Garn set out again, this time to Nar Shaddaa in order to discuss matters with one of Trhar's contacts. However, something quite unexpected happened after they were talking. A seemingly random person attacked him, using the Force to great effect while using no weapons but her own hands. She belonged to a group called the Wardens of the Sky, and she had been taken notice of Garn a few years beforehand. Now that he was back on Nar Shaddaa, the Warden sought to kill him.
Unfortunately, she failed. Quite miserably, actually. Garn, knowledgeable in unarmed combat, fought her to a standstill before rebuffing her with Force lightning, then Force pushing her through a wall. She tried to flee, but Garn threw a lightsaber after her. She mostly dodged it, so instead of both legs being chopped off, only one was hamstrung. The Warden summoned all her strength and hurled a powerful Force blast at Garn, staggering him before she rolled off the side of the bridge and fell onto a speeder traveling beneath the area they were fighting on.
Approximately a year later, Garn was sent to investigate rumors of an old collection of knowledge about the Sith on Myrkr, including a holocron; according to Lord Trhar's information, it was kept hidden by a small cult in the vast, relatively unexplored regions of the planet. By the time Garn reached Myrkr, he found that another Dark Jedi had beaten him there, and was in the process of convincing the cult he was a god so he could gain access to the collection of Sith information. When the Dark Jedi noticed Garn, he ordered the cult to attack the Sephi-Firrerreo hybrid.
Garn used nothing but the Force and his fists to retaliate against the attackers. Cultists were hurled away by Force pushes, electrocuted by lightning, and had their bodies broken by the Dark Jedi Master. He chased the other Dark Jedi into a small temple of sorts. Inside, he saw a medium sized room with several scrolls and tomes, but the holocron was nowhere to be seen. The explanation came in the form of the other Dark Jedi, who ambushed Garn. He fought back, and through ruthless tactics, cornered the Dark Jedi before collapsing a hallway on the him and pinning his legs. Garn shattered his skull with the Force, then took his lightsaber and the holocron out of the man's coat.
En route to dropping the Sith paraphernalia off at Trhar's base, his ship was attacked by another. When his vessel was boarded, it became apparent that that the Dark Jedi on Myrkr had had allies. Despite his best efforts, Garn could not stop them from taking his cargo while he battled two of the opposing Dark Jedi. Before they could secure everything, he killed one of the Dark Jedi and pushed the other back into their ship, along with a concealed tracking beacon.
Garn maneuvered his ship free of the docking clamps, then went into hyperspace in a random jump. When the enemy Dark Jedi ship did not follow, he located it on his own ship's long-range sensors through the tracking beacon he had planted. He tailed them to Corusant and into some of the lower layers. Evidently, they intended to sell some or all of the Sith artifacts. Not willing to let that happen, Garn slipped inside their ship while the majority of the Dark Jedi were away, silently killed the guard, then took the stolen items back to his own ship.
As he left, Garn planted a moderate sized explosive charge inside the Dark Jedi's ship. When they came back to it, all were killed in the explosion, or so he believed. As it so happened, there had been two Dark Jedi guards, one of which he had not noticed. The man followed Garn back to his ship, then sprang at him from above, knocking the holocron out of Garn's grasp. It skittered away, but Garn was too focused on defending himself from the furious assault to pay attention to the holocron.
After a short time, he gained the advantage against the other Dark Jedi, and successfully forced him back until he tripped on the holocron. Unfortunately, with the way their lightsabers were locked, the holocron was propelled into the air and directly into the lightsabers' path. It was cut into a few pieces, and the release of Dark Side energy made the entire area cold.
In panic, the other Dark Jedi tried to flee, but Garn shocked him with lightning before Force pushing him off the edge of his ship's landing platform, causing him to fall several thousand meters. Thinking it was wisest to leave while he had the chance, as there was a strong possibility that at least one Jedi on Corusant had felt the disturbance in the Force, Garn went aboard his ship and took off.
Three years after the events surrounding the Sith trove, Garn noticed that he was being pursued by no less than four Jedi Shadows. He veered off his previously established course to Vendaxa, where he landed and waited for the Jedi to come to him. Shortly after he reached the planet, he sensed the presence of an acklay stalking him. When it attacked, he responded with a potent blast of Force lightning. Mostly disabled by the lightning, the acklay was practically defenseless against Garn when he came in to cut its head off.
Half a day later, the Jedi landed and went in search of their quarry. Garn lead them straight into the den of a roggwart. The large creature was fended off by the Jedi at first, until its mate joined the fray. Only one of the Jedi was killed during the battle, but the two roggwarts were both struck down in retaliation. After this, they followed Garn's trail again, this time tracking him deeper into the forest.
There, a relatively small pack of vanx attacked. Garn swooped in while the Jedi were occupied, subsequently killing three vanx's and one of the Shadows. Another was injured by the ferocious creatures, while the third cut his way through the rest to face Garn. As the Jedi was tired from fighting the roggwarts and the vanx pack, as well as tracking Garn for several hours, the Dark Jedi Master was able to overpower him fairly easily. He cut off one of the Jedi's arms, then spun around and used his other lightsaber to slice through the Shadow's knees. Garn then stomped on his neck, crushing the vertebrae beneath his boot.
When the wounded Shadow attempted to stop Garn, he shocked the man into unconsciousness before lobbing his head off. As the bodies would be disposed of by Vendaxa's wildlife, Garn left them, but took any items of interest, as well as their lightsabers. He also located their ship and broke into it, then proceeded to loot it of anything valuable. With that, he departed Vendaxa.
Just after Garn turned sixty-five, he went to Corusant in order to speak with an information broker. Twenty minutes before he was scheduled to talk with the informant, a bounty hunter team barged into the bar and declared that the man next to Garn would be coming with them. Not knowing this, he drew his lightsabers and turned to see that the man beside him was a Dark Jedi who had a fairly large bounty on his head. By that time, the Dark Jedi had his lightsaber activated, and with Garn in the line of fire as well, he pretty much had no choice but to retaliate against the bounty hunters.
Garn nimbly deflected blaster fire, dodged through the room, and hewed enemies apart. Roughly one minute later, all the bounty hunters were dead. As the other Dark Jedi turned to thank Garn for his help, he impaled the man through the back, killing him instantly. After he spoke with Trhar's contact, he would gather the bounty on the dead Dark Jedi.
Three years after he went to Corusant, he joined Maere and a Kiffar Dark Jedi Knight in eliminating a small group of Grey Jedi who were planning to attack and destroy the Lord Trhar's cabal. Unfortunately for them, the Dark Jedi moved first. They came in, and before the Grey Jedi knew it, half of their number were dead. Disorganized, they tried to move together, but that only served to make one large target for Garn's Lightning Storm, Maere's Kinetite, and the Kiffar's Force blasts. Soon, the last Grey Jedi was dead, and the three Dark Jedi departed.
A few months after Garn turned seventy-one, he was sent by Trhar to Kashyyyk in order to fulfill the cabal's end of a bargain to a powerful Trandoshan. The Dark Jedi was to help the warlord in attacking a village and taking the surviving Wookies as slaves. During the raid, he fought an ex-Jedi who proved to be a skilled combatant. Near the end of the raid, he finally outmaneuvered the Wookie and bisected him.
It was in the aftermath of the raid that his doubt of Trhar grew stronger. The Jedi had had a family and two children, one of which was Force Sensitive. When some Trandoshans came to take the young Wookies away, he cut them down. He offered an explanation to the warlord that his Master would want them to train. The warlord relented, allowing Garn to take the children. In reality, he took them to another village to be raised by the Wookies there.
A similar experience occurred three years later. He traveled with another Dark Jedi Master to Phaeda, where she had found a small family with no less than four Force Sensitive children. All of them were the right age for Lord Trhar's indoctrination, and she desired Garn's aid in kidnapping them. He started to do so, but his rage rose from within him. He attacked the other Master and slaughtered her, then dumped her corpse into the lower levels of the city. Garn may not have had the strength of will to escape Trhar yet, but he would prevent anyone else from becoming like him.
About a year after he killed his fellow Dark Jedi cabal member on Phaeda, the passenger ship he was using as transport briefly stopped by a planet en route to Iridonia to investigate a distress signal. When they attempted to follow the transmission, the stratosphere, having a unique energy pattern all but unknown in the wider galaxy, caused the ship to malfunction and crash. Garn, thinking quickly, used the Force to save most of the ship.
They were stuck on the planet for several months, during which they attempted to find and exploit gaps in the atmosphere's interference so they could use the transport's COM system for help. But on the planet, they found something they shouldn't have. A grey ooze-like creature, worshiped by the native near-humans as the Rot God, killed off most of the passengers. It infected the dead, turning them into shells of their former self to attack the other survivors.
Once, when it had Garn cornered, it talked to him. It spoke cryptically, but the Dark Jedi was intelligent enough to discover that it was apparently an ancient being that had caused the deaths of countless beings, and had seen the Celestials themselves. It also knew of Garn's past, and taunted him with the memory of his murder of Lasria. Enraged by its words, he eradicated the ooze with a torrent of lightning, but knew full well it was far from dead.
Luckily, the survivors eventually got a signal through to the outside galaxy, and soon, a ship came to rescue them. It sent dropships down through the gaps in the stratosphere and picked up those still living, which consisted of only Garn and three others. Afterwords, he put the disturbing events behind him and focused on continuing with his assignments. However, he could do nothing as the doubt deepened and focused into a crescendo of denial of Lord Trhar.
Rebellion
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For the next year, Garn became distant from Lord Trhar's cabal. He planned how best he could turn on the Anzat's cabal and topple it, for he knew how well Trhar had dealt with traitors; he himself had killed a fair number of turncoats. He decided to go for Trhar's biggest supporters, thereby weakening his power. The first order of business was to track down Master Noyir, a Feeorin, to Riflor. However, what he found was Noyir's corpse lying next to a Draethos and Miraluka Jedi. Both were unconscious and sorely wounded. He took a measure of pity on them and alerted the law enforcement, who came and took the Jedi to a hospital, but he was gone long before that.
Garn's second target was Master Neril Khamersu, a Twi'lek. He met the other Dark Jedi Master at the Twi'lek's estate located on Dantooine. Their subsequent duel absolutely demolished Neril's mansion and alerted local authorities. They cut down the intruders, then continued with their fight. At the end, Garn shocked Master Khamersu badly, then brought the last section of the building down on him, crushing the Twi'lek and killing him.
A year and a half past before Garn could locate a third supporter of Trhar. During that time period, he fended off several assassination attempts and kept moving, ensuring the Anzat's agents would be hard pressed to follow him. On Eriadu, he found Master Lentas, an Arkanian Offshoot. They fought briefly, but in that time they both nearly died several times. In a flurry of movement, Garn deactivated one lightsaber, putting Lentas off-balance. The rebel Dark Jedi took advantage of that to whirl around and cut the Arkanian in half, ending their fight.
With the information he gained after killing Lentas, Garn had narrowed down Lord Trhar's most likely locations, and with the Arkanian's death, the Anzat had one less major supporter. During the next several months of tracking down his former Master, he was subjected to more assassination attempts than ever before. This time, they weren't all Dark Jedi, but mercenaries and bounty hunters hired to kill him. Even with the frequent battles, he did not falter, and kept persevering.
He made a slight detour to Corusant when he heard that Kivak, a Barabel Dark Jedi Knight serving Trhar, was dispatched to assassinate Quentas-Lir, the Draethos Jedi who had been put into a coma during his fight with Master Noyir. Garn tried to stop him, but he arrived too late. He tracked down the Dark Jedi, but by the time he reached Kivak, a Jedi was in the process of fighting him. Garn left after Kivak was impaled by his own lightsaber, then continued to follow Trhar's trail.
His next target was Master Bareg Qyr, a Weequay. Garn found him on Saleucami. Bareg got the drop on him first, and came in with a flurry of his dual guard-shotos. Garn was hard pressed to keep up the defensive, but he finally rattled the Weequay by channeling Force lightning into his lightsabers and slashing one of the guard-shotos. The electric shock disoriented Bareg slightly, allowing Garn to come in hard and fast. He quickly kicked one of his arms out, in the process knocking a guard shoto out of his hand, then ducked low and tackled the Weequay's legs, quickly flipping him over Garn's back and onto his abdomen. He spun, Force pushed Bareg's remaining weapon away, then shocked him to death after several long seconds.
A mere four weeks before he confronted Trhar for the last time, he found himself fighting Maere. He tried to convince his previous apprentice to help him stop the Anzat, and after a time, she agreed to join him. In the penultimate battle Garn fought, he and Maere were separated inside one of Trhar's bases on Fondor. They were each assaulted by some of the last Dark Jedi under Trhar's command, but both outmaneuvered their opponents and slew them.
En route to Lord Trhar's true location at long last, Maere seduced Garn and coerced him into sleeping with her during the long journey. While he was seemingly soundly asleep, she attempted to kill him with one of his Tehk'la blades. He reacted in time to stop her, and in the wake of her betrayal, he stabbed her through the heart in self defense. Contrary to what the desperate Anzat had hoped, the Togruta's deception had only made Garn angrier.
On Ruusan, the fierce battle between Trhar and Garn absolutely annihilated the landscape around them. When the Anzat tried to dominate Garn, he resisted, instead shocking Trhar and sending him hurtling back. In the following bout of lightsaber combat, Garn focused his rage, making it into a cold, hard fury that made everything crystal clear. He tirelessly fought Trhar, not even attempting to be subtle, but he made up for it with sheer ferocity. When The Anzat tried to goad him, Garn was too far beyond words to even hear them over the rush of blood pounding through his body.
With a final slam of plasma on plasma, Garn disarmed Trhar, sending the lightsaber flying. When Trhar attempted to stall Garn with lightning while using the Force to bring his weapon back to him, Garn threw one lightsaber, bisecting Trhar's. A blast of telekinesis from the Anzat knocked Garn's other lightsaber out of his hand and the thrown one away. He caught the full brunt of Trhar's renewed flurry of lightning, his feet sliding back a meter before he started pushing back. Agonizingly slowly, he willed the energy flaring between them to move itself towards Trhar. Several seconds later, an explosion of Force energy catapulted Trhar into the base's hangar. Garn entered the hangar and stood over him, electricity crackling around his arms.
Garn declared that he was free from the Anzat's hold over him. Trhar retorted that he would never be free. The Sephi-Firrerreo hybrid agreed, saying he never would be as long as Trhar lived. As he moved in to kill the Anzat, Trhar exerted some of the last of his energy to stun Garn. He ran to a large speeder and tried to escape in it, but with Garn's full fury in action, he took hold of the vehicle and devastated it with Force lightning before slamming it back into the Dark Jedi's base.
When the severely injured Trhar feebly tried to get himself unpinned from the wreckage, Garn summoned a fierce blast of lightning that set him on fire. As the Anzat lied there, screaming in agony, Garn called his lightsabers to him, then went to the end of the hangar and onto the hill outside. In perhaps his most powerful use of the Force to date, Garn created a massive Lightning Storm that shook the base to its foundations, breaking it apart while the landscape blackened around it.
He redirected the Storm's power into shattering the side of the hill, creating a massive landslide that caused the structure to tumble down a ravine and, while breaking apart, become covered by soil and stone. The earth collapsed underneath his feet, but the Force kept him aloft while he hovered back to stable ground. Afterwords, the structure was completely buried, and showed no signs that the base had ever existed at all.
Garn, thoroughly exhausted, fell to his knees, and for the first time in so long, felt a flicker of joy. The last of Trhar's men would be hunted down and killed or die in hiding, and the Anzat Dark Jedi was finally dead. He could not ruin any more lives by kidnapping children and murdering good people. With that, Garn departed.
Freedom, At Last
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As a Drifter
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For the next seven or so years, Garn drifted around the galaxy. Since he had access to Trhar's bank accounts, which provided him with several million credits, he could have settled down somewhere tranquil. As it was, he was restless. He became a bounty hunter on occasion and a hired guard at other times, which satisfied his need to do something active.
The most exciting times for Garn were when he hunted down Dark Jedi, one time attracting the attention of a Shadow also hunting his quarry. They came into contact at about the same time after cornering the Dark Jedi in between them. They overwhelmed the man and killed him, but the Shadow was taken aback by Garn's lightsaber usage and deep connection to the Dark Side.
The Shadow confronted Garn about it and threatened to bring him in despite the latter's protests. When that happened, Garn attacked the Shadow. After a fast-paced duel, he outmaneuvered the Jedi and disabled him. He didn't want to kill the Shadow, merely render him incapable of following Garn.
After his eightieth birthday, he worked in concert with a skilled Mandalorian bounty hunter to take down the last surviving member--at least, from what Garn could find--of Lord Trhar's cabal, Master Trelis Narvon. The elusive Dark Jedi led them on an almost galaxy-wide chase, starting on Makem Te and ending inside a temple on Cilpar. There, the Mandalorian and Garn fought him in a lengthy duel, during which the bounty hunter was severely wounded when he was pinned beneath a collapsed section of the structure.
After purposefully being disarmed, Garn surprised Trelis when the Dark Jedi came in to kill him. He used the Force to block the lightsaber for a moment, then spun around Trelis, released the claws on his gauntlets, and ripped the man's throat out with them. He then helped the Mandalorian get out from under the rubble and get him to a hospital.
When Garn was midway through his eighty-third year, he mistakenly angered a Hutt by killing one of his best agents. The Sephi-Firrerreo hybrid found himself attacked on multiple fronts by bounty hunters. After carving his way through three teams of enemies, he set his sights on the Hutt. If no one was around to pay the bounty, there would be no bounty hunters, after all. He hijacked the Hutt's personal ship while it was traveling, sabotaged the engines so they would propel the vessel into a star, then escaped on a shuttle.
He also aroused the ire of a Sith Aristocrat two years after his encounter with the Hutt. Not in the mood to negotiate with someone who hired mercenaries to kill him, Garn tracked the man down to Vjun. He fought through the security teams, even battling a Dark Jedi ally of the Aristocrat, who Garn killed after a quick, mostly one-sided duel by snapping his neck. When he finally reached the Aristocrat, he burned a hole right through his body with a concentrated bolt of Force lightning.
Shortly before his investigation into the Sith Order, Garn had gotten the attention of a small Mandalorian group. They were bounty hunters, and desired to get rid of the Force user's competition. They managed to procure a few ysalamiri from Myrkr, and ambushed him when he was alone on Nar Shaddaa. At first, due to the sphere of anti-Force emanating from the creatures, Garn was put on the defensive. He was only able to sporadically use the Force, but when able, he used it not to create lightning or push effects, but to throw objects at the Mandalorians; of course, the ysalamiri didn't stop momentum.
Using his vibro weapons, he killed three of the Mandalorians, and when one fired a homing rocket at him, Garn quickly moved to an area where he could use the Force, then diverted the path of the projectile. The resulting explosion blew one of the bounty hunters in half and stunned two others, allowing him to use a recently stolen blaster to shoot them without retaliation. The last Mandalorian, backing up over a bridge, thought himself safe from Garn, as he was able to dodge his thrown objects and blaster shots. However, he didn't account for Garn using the Force to break the bridge's supports outside of the ysalamiri's sphere, sending him tumbling down several hundred meters to his death.
Whispers of the Sith
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Slightly more than seven years after he killed Trhar, Garn started hearing rumors about something new. Not the Mandalorians or the Sith Empire, something...darker. Upon further investigation, he found out that the Sith Order itself was being resurrected. He was intrigued by the idea. The Sith could give him purpose again. They could make him stronger. He could become so much more if he joined them.
After giving it some more thought, he decided to follow up on some leads. Most of them turned out to be dead ends, but he was used to that. Finally, he found what he was looking for. A short time later, he became inducted into the Sith Order as an Initiate.
