The Fourteenth Great Jedi War left deep wounds across the surface of Arx. One such victim, unnoticed by the Brotherhood at large, was the Corrino Research Laboratory on the marshy continent of Uskil. The Collective had assaulted the Shadow Academy's Nesolat platform to gain access to the surface of Arx, its strategic importance dwarfing its role as an isolated research facility. When the battle moved to the planet's surface, the Nesolat was discarded like so much chaff, and debris from the disintegrating station was scattered across the planet.

Some of that debris struck the specimen habitat, damaging them enough for the specimens contained within to escape into Uskil’s swampy wilderness. In the aftermath of the invasion, playing animal control was a low priority for the Iron Throne, but the beasts became more of a nuisance—and even a danger—as time went on. Their exposure to the maelstrom of Force energies around Uskil, stirred up by the Grand Master’s ritual during the invasion, has made the creatures aggressive and unpredictable.

Rather than wandering Uskil’s swampy, storm-soaked wildlands, many of the escaped beasts have since returned to their ruined habitats, finding the climate more to their liking; it was designed for them, after all. They’ve since become extremely territorial, attacking any Shadow Academy staff who try to remove them so the habitats can be rebuilt. Rather than continue to delay the Academy’s research and sacrifice hapless construction workers and lab technicians, the Headmistress has put out a call to any members of the Brotherhood who are willing to help with the problem.

Your goal in this scenario is to subdue and capture the hostile creature so that it can be transported to a different facility for further testing. As the creature has been modified by the Academy’s scientists, the Headmistress would strongly prefer that you capture it alive, rather than killing it and forcing the researchers to make do with data from a dead specimen.

When Ciara had sent for Aru he never expected to be assigned a capture mission, let alone of a beast. It certainly wasn’t on his job description to be a zookeeper.

But nonetheless there he was, on the swamps of Uskil, looking for a pack of Mastiff phalones.

He had taken time to study the beasts on his way there. They were stealthy creatures, which waited for the best opportunity to pounce on their prey for the perfect kill.

Unfortunately for them, so was the Human. Or rather, that’s how he thought of himself.

Accompanied by his ever faithful R2 unit Tinker, Aru looked around the swampy maze he was in. Whenever a bubble would burst in the water, steam was released, followed by a putrid smell. It made Aru feel sick. He wasn’t really a fan of these type of operations.

“Can you scan the area?” the Gray Jedi asked his droid. “See if you can find any large lifeforms.”

Tinker beeped in compliance and a small antenna came out of his domed head. It rotated around a few times before retracting again into its hole. Then, the droid chirped a combination of low- and high-pitched whistles, and rotated its body towards the direction he had found something.

“Thank you bud,” he said, then adjusted his direction towards the denser part of the swamp.

Thicker vegetation covered this section of the marsh. The air was much more humid and heavier to breathe. Aru allowed his hand to rest on his lightsaber hilt, to assure himself he was prepared for anything that could try to surprise him.

But he wasn’t ready for this.

The Human came to a halt. And so did another Aru right in front of him. He shook his head quickly and blinked twice. He still saw himself, less than ten meters away.

The other Aru waved a sloppy salute, exactly the same way he did. Two fingers stretched on his right hand. Aru mimicked by instinct.

“I really need to stop drinking,” he stated.

“Hm. Yes you should,” the other Aru responded.

“And it speaks! Tinker, are you seeing this?”

His droid was confused. It didn’t understand why its master was so astonished for seeing another Human. It beeped in a very explicit manner to its master.

“What is it?” even though he couldn’t understand the little droid, he knew something was not right.

“Perhaps you should leave the poor droid alone, don’t you think?”

Aru lifted his head to face the other Aru, this time to find a completely different face in front of him. It was that of a man with smooth skin and long black hair which was tied in the back, forming a small tail. The most striking feature Aru noticed was his smile. It reeked of confidence. But it looked too mysterious. Too… fake…

“I’ve heard of you,” the Qel-Droman Aedile said. “I work with your brother.”

The man in front of him was Wyndell Tyris. Aru knew the name well. Their business branch was similar and he was regarded as a local legend in some places.

“For,” he corrected.

“What was that?”

“I’d say you work for my brother,” Wyndell explained. “Half-brother to be exact. But do tell, how is he?”

Aru focused on his senses. He was trying to feel any other illusion or trick the long haired man might be using. But it was to no avail. He couldn’t sense a thing.

“What are you doing here?” the Gray Jedi queried, ignoring the previous question.

“Same as you. Or should I say, doing your job.” Tyris pulled a datapad and peered over it quickly. “It pays well.”

“So you’re stealing my job?”

“No. As I said, I’m doing it for you.”

“And how do you plan on…” A loud shriek put an end to their banter. The noise came from the dense vegetation around them. Wyndell’s eyes quickly covered the surrounding area in search of possible places the beast could be hiding.

Aru, meanwhile, took the opportunity to vanish from view. The Force felt very strong in the area, which aided him in masking his presence.

Wyndell was surprised the Human managed to pull a trick he was very used to himself. Although, he was more attentive to the ever so slight rustle of the brushes nearby.

With a quick draw of one of his LL-30 Blaster Pistol, Wyndel pointed it in the air.

“Don’t move!” He said in a serious manner. The Defender had pinpointed Aru’s location. His movements were betrayed by the Force, for he too could sense them.

The Gray Jedi then appeared right in front of the blaster barrel. Astonish for having been found, something he wasn’t used to.

With a quick and sudden movement of his hand, Wyndell fired a single bolt from his blaster pistol. Aru didn’t move. He was sure it was it for him. But… he missed?

The Gray Jedi looked behind to find a dead beast less than two meters away from possibly killing him. It was of the same species as the ones Aru had been sent to capture.

Ciara was not going to be happy.

Aru chuckled. The near death experience had woken him up fully. He wasn’t sure how to deal with Wyndell right now, but the man had just saved him.

“Thank you, I guess,” he said.

“Don’t thank me. There’s at least twenty more around us right now.”

The confirmation of the claim came when several angry shrieks of different tones responded to the death of one of its species. Although hidden in the bushes, Aru could feel them, faintly. Almost like they emanated an aura that touched the soft tendrils of the Force. But, it was linked. They seemed connected, as if they were one.

“This is going to be fun,” the Human Aedile smirked, to which Wyndell reciprocated. The game was on.

The rustle in the brushes became louder as the hidden beasts moved about. Wyndell had both his blasters armed now and was following their movements the best he could. But there were far too many. Aru, on the other hand, armed only with his lightsaber, didn’t ignite it just yet. They weren’t supposed to kill the Mastiffs, only subdue them.

Both Humans were now back to back.

“We cannot kill them,” Aru explained, “the Headmistress wants them alive.”

One Mastiff charged from Wyndell’s right, to which the Human dodged and fired a bolt, missing on purpose. The beast then quickly scurried back into hiding.

Then another jumped in front of Aru and tried to claw him. It hit an invisible wall. The Gray Jedi had reacted by lifting a barrier around himself. Confused, and most of all angry for having missed its target, the Mastiff shrieked once more and ran away.

More came out of cover. They were getting more and more confident, taking advantage of their numbers. Six Mastiffs surrounded the Humans. They walked slowly in circles. The beasts looked to find an opening in their defence, while the Humans tried their best to maintain visual contact with all of them.

One Mastiff plunged towards Wyndell. The Defender sidestepped, but was forced to duck and roll away, as a second beast tried to gnaw him. He carefully fired at their feet, pushing them back. But his patience was running out. Soon there would be blood.

Meanwhile, Aru was dodging incoming claw attacks, swiftly as they came, using his strongest stances in Echani he knew. Both legs were bent and spread to maximize his base, but his weight was almost always on one of them, to allow the other to move freely and fast. With quick changes in the weight he was almost like dancing with the Mastiffs.

Withouth igniting his hilt, the Human punched hard in one Mastiff’s head. The shrieking beast lost balance, and its beak hit the floor. All the other beasts screamed in unisson.

“They’re somehow connected!” The Aedile yelled.

“I noticed.” Wyndell replied. “That’ll make things more interesting.”

“Very well. Set phasers to stun!” Wyndell shouted, quoting a classic holovid line. He thumbed the setting on each of his LL-30’s.

Aru stared at the man with the tired expression Wyn had come to expect from people that met him for the first time. The Shadow gestured at his lightsaber, and then to the rest of his person, which was notably devoid of any other kind of armament.

“Well, whose fault is it for going on a hunting mission with a glowy death sword?” Wyn asked pointedly, sighing as he fired off a series of stun bolts into the next mastiff phalone that lunged at the Defender from behind. The creature’s limbs locked up mid-air and it landed clumsily on its face.

“Look...” Aru said, frustration flickering across his expression as he continued to swerve away from a gauntlet of slashing claws and razor-sharp beaks. “I had to pawn my blaster to afford the downpayment on my ship. That’s why I took this job in the first place.”

Wyn helped by shooting down one of the mastiff phalones harassing the bearded man. He fired a second stun bolt into it, just to be sure. Always double tap.

“There, I stunned one for you. And wait...aren’t you...an Aedile?” Wyndell asked. “I’m no financial advisor, but don’t you get a salary for that?”

“All goes to paying off my debt,” Law replied tightly, sweat beading on his forehead. “Debts,” he corrected himself with a grumble. He was clearly struggling to stay alive without actually hurting any of the creatures.

“I’m sure you already know this, what with being a Knight and all, but those sabers can be set to a stun-like training mode,” Wyn explained calmly, as if instructing a toddler.

“Of course I knew that!” Aru retorted quickly. He had not known, of course, so he stopped to search for the setting on the cylindrical hilt of his Knight’s lightsaber.

“...You can’t just toggle it on and off.” The older Tyris sibling rolled his eyes. “You would have had to do it before you went wandering off into the swamp looking for mutated monsters.”

“Oh, yeah, obviously.” While Law had been focused on finding the switch, another phalone crept up behind him, its tell-tale clicking the only give-away before it pounced for the Aedile's back. Just as its teeth were about to sink into the exposed flesh of his neck, however, its momentum was arrested by an unseen, invisible hand.

Aru spun and nearly tripped over his own feet as he came face to face with a levitating mastiff phalone, flailing and thrashing and batting its flightless wings as it hovered in place.

“Kark me sideways—”

“—maybe later, but this thing is not going to sit here all day,” Wyn growled through gritted teeth as he maintained both his focus and telekinetic hold of the suspended phalone.

“Oh, right.”

Aru squared his feet and chambered the lightsaber with both hands down by his hip. He bent his knees, pushed off his toes, and sprung upwards with a slight boost from the Force. His ascending swing built off his rising momentum, the uppercut slice splitting a deep gash across the creature's exposed stomach.

“Oh, yeah!” Aru hooted victoriously as he turned to check that Wyn had witnessed his daring feat. The Aedile’s jubilation was short lived, as he became immediately drenched in a deluge of black ichor, loose organs, and foul smelling fluid.

The remaining carcass of the creature came down next, freed from Wyn’s grip, causing Aru to dive towards the ground for cover and nearly knocking the wind out of himself.

The Defender’s LL-30’s flared repeatedly as he mopped up what was left of the mastiff phalone pack. He twirled Dexter and Doakes around his fingers and slid them back into his holsters.

With the shooting stopped, the clearing returned to the quiet chirping of insects and the slow churning of murky water. Aru managed to crawl back to his feet and caught his breath. He surveyed the mixture of dead and stunned mastiff phalones and was quietly appreciative that he had run into the Elder. That said, his clothes were now stained and ruined. Aru honestly wasn’t sure if he could afford a new set. Guess it was back to borrowing the Journeyman robes.

“Here,” Wyndell said as he extended a neatly folded nerf-wool towel towards the filthy Aedile.

Aru blinked a few times, but instead of the obvious question of why Wyndell had a towel with him, he simply nodded his head and graciously accepted it. He patted his face down and wiped his hands, then the hilt of his now-deactivated lightsaber. He thought he detected a faint...floral scent?

“So, new plan,” Wyn mused as he started to reach his hand behind his belt and shoved it down his trousers, the metal buckle rattling.

“You can’t be s-serious,” Aru started to stammer, his eyes widening in abject horror.

Wyn paused mid-reach and lifted an eyebrow. He slowly removed a holdout blaster from a hidden holster he kept strapped to his inner thigh. “What?” he asked, completely oblivious to what Aru was fretting about. “It’s my Chekhov Gun.”

“Check-off gun?”

“Yeah, that’s what I said. Merr-Sonn Q2. You know how to use one?”

Aru let out a breath he had been holding in and relaxed visibly. “Oh. Yeah, of course.”

Wyn smiled as he readjusted his belt and cracked his knuckles. “Don’t worry, I already set it to stun. Now, we just need to figure out how we actually get one of these critters back to the Shadow Academy so you can get your bounty.”

The Aedile spun the blaster in his fingers a few times. Although he had never used one like that, he got accustomed to it pretty fast.

He then played around a bit, mimicking fake blaster sounds with his mouth while pointing the gun everywhere. Eventually he noticed the disapproving gaze, coming from an already filled with regret Wyndell.

They stared at each other for a few seconds. A sweat drop slid down Aru’s face, getting lost in his skull shaped beard.

“What?” He almost yelled, embarrassed at the situation.

“Nothing,” the Defender sighed, “do you have any idea how to capture these beasts?”

The Gray Jedi rustled his beard.

“Ciara never told me about them…” he thought out loud.

“Wait. You work for the Shadow Academy?” Wyndell wondered how much of a debt had the Human accumulated, having two high paying jobs. He placed his right hand on Aru’s shoulder, a concerned look on his face.

“Are you alright?” Wyndell laughed. “How are you even alive?”

Their banter was ruined by Tinker’s alarming beeps. Clearly, something was wrong. Both Humans turned, back to back, and looked quickly in several directions.

The creatures weren’t shrieking anymore. In fact, they weren’t making a single noise. Had Tinker not warned them, they wouldn't have noticed the mastiffs at all.

Four mastiff phalones plunged from behind the bushes. Their attack was clearly coordinated. Too well even. As a quick reaction, both Humans tried to raise invisible walls around them. Aru’s right hand was held up to help him concentrate. Wyndell didn’t need to raise his.

They were both launched in opposite directions. The clash of the invisible walls trying to form in the same place caused them to push away from each other.

Luckily, though, the mishap prevented the mastiffs from mauling them both.

The older Human quickly rolled back and up on his feet, shooting a volley of stunning blasts. He caught one of the mastiffs.

Aru, on the other hand, wasn’t so quick to get up and failed his only shot at the running beasts.

“We should lead them back into the confinement cages!” He yelled.

“And where is that supposed to be?” Wyndell looked around. Debris from the Nesolat was everywhere.

“Follow my droid!”

---

Tinker couldn’t move very fast. The marsh terrain wasn’t suitable for his small wheeled legs. It had to stop several times to untangle itself from vines on the ground, or be carried over a deep puddle.

They were now a couple hundred meters from the main collapsed section of the Nesolat. The majority of the confinement cages were still inside, and a lot more helpful equipment was certain to be around.

Wyndell walked in the front. His acute hearing caused him to stop. Not because he had noticed incoming attacks from the mastiffs, but because the distinct sound of hot falling liquid was tingling his ears. Soon after, the bitter, though warm smell of caf invaded his nostrils. He turned.

“What are you…” The Defender stopped himself. He wasn’t questioning anything that Human did anymore.

Aru, meanwhile, was drinking a steaming hot cup of caf, freshly served by his droid who was happy to be of service, as always.

“You want some?” He genuinely asked.

Wyndell couldn’t deny that a cup of caf would surely taste nice. He accepted it and watched in amusement as the little droid spun its head while hot steam was being released from its insides. Then a small hatch opened and a small cup with caf was handed to the Human.

“That’s a neat trick.” He said while sipping from his cup. “Now, back to work.”

After the break was over, both Humans approached a big chunk of the fallen platform and got inside. Torn cables, still sparkling with electricity. The occasional flash lit the room but immediately went back to the dim red light. The backup power was still functioning somehow.

Shattered glass covered the floors of the slightly inclined room they were in. Bent metal bars from the impact indicated how the beasts had managed to get out. Some were still intact though. But the beasts inside were already dead, from starvation.

Wyndell stepped carefully. He was followed by Tinker who had deemed it safer to be around the older Human than his own master by now.

An echoed sound of claw on metal was heard throughout the room. Then another. And then several. Although unseen, the mastiffs were close, and prowling for the Humans.

“I bet I can slice open those cages.” The Aedile gloated.

“How long?” Wyndell questioned. He was already looking for vantage points around the room. A few crates could provide cover, but other than that, there wasn’t much to use.

“Normally I would say a minute or two,” Aru paused, his gaze poised on a control terminal, “but this is the SA. I’m sure they have double the safety protocols implemented.”

The Human picked his small whiskey canister and drank from it, several gulps. Wyndell wondered how effective Aru's skills really were in his state.

“How much are these screachers worth?” He asked.

“Fifty thousand per head.” Aru said with a smirk. “Alive obviously.”

Wyndell was impressed. The Headmistress paid well. But there wasn’t time to think about how to spend that many credits. The howling shrieks of the mastiffs were deafening and echoing all around the room.

“Well then. We’ll split it even and I won’t let you die.” The Tyris Defender announced.

“Deal!” Aru immediately agreed. He knew he was alive because of the other man. He needed all the help possible.

Wyndell didn’t look back. He sprung to action, firing bolt after bolt, to get the creatures attention. His sharply aimed shots were almost always direct hits onto the mastiffs’ heads. But there were far too many to keep track of.

Meanwhile, Aru cracked his fingers before trying to access the control terminal.

“Alright you beauty. Time to meet your maker!”

He quickly bypassed the first layer of security, but the remaining ones would take a bit longer.

“How you holding on?” He yelled, not taking his eyes from the screen.

“I’m alive. That’s something.” Wyndell joked. He nimbly reloaded his blasters and got ready for round two.

Six critters...times four....divided by two...carry the three...

Wyn attempted to crunch some numbers in his head, but quickly abandoned it and instead focused on the more pressing manner of being alive to spend any credits.

Fortunately, he had an idea.

Yes, there were more modified creatures than should be possible. However, the derelict remains of the former Shadow Academy platform did only provide a single point of ingress, funneling the mastiff phalones into a narrow bottleneck.

First, he had to deal with the ones that were already inside. Wyn holstered one of his LL-33’s while keeping the other carefully at work picking off any of the creatures that got too close. He reached for the can of insect repellent on his belt. The Master found a broken pipe with a jagged edge, and banged the can against it to create a small puncture hole. The can started to hiss.

While Wyndell Tyris was no demolition expert, it was always easier to destroy than to create. He glanced down at an imaginary wrist-chrono.

“Hey Aru, what time is it?” the Master casually inquired as he chucked the leaking insect repellent into the throng of mastiff phalones. The creatures paused, clicking menacingly and tilting their heads as their collective-minds reacted to this new sound. Was it a threat, a new meal, a new member of their pack?

“What? I’m busy” Aru said, still focused on his slicing.

Wyn drew the flare gun he’d stashed from inside his jacket and leveled it with deadly aim towards the still-hissing can. “Flatter me,” he replied dryly.

“Uh...zero-four-twenty, why—”

“—Blaze it!” Wyn shouted as he squeezed the trigger.

Wyn fired the flare, a fluorescent streak of light racing towards the mastiff phalones and their mysterious new guest. The flare landed right on target, and created an instantaneous exothermic reaction with the hissing can of insect repellent. Or something like that. Whatever chemistry was at play, the result was as desired. A small cloud of ochre flame unfurled in the center of the clustered creatures, like a miniature detonating Death Star.

Aru spared a glance over his shoulder, eyebrows raising, before returning to his work. Tinker chirped cheerfully, but then deflated with a waning warble.

The blast was gone as quickly as it came. The mastiff phalones, meanwhile, seemed to be more alarmed than harmed. They refocused their attention on the two Humans.

“Huh, I honestly thought that would work better,” Wyn murmured as he stowed the flare gun back into his jacket to keep one hand still free.

The creatures continued to file in, so Wyn moved to his next ingenious plan. The Defender fired his blasters up into the air and started to mockingly mimic their primal clicking noises.Clearly taking offense, and the bait, the mastiff phalones started to follow and flow towards the cheeky Human.

With their attention fully on him again, Wyn led the current swarm, seven critters in total, in a circle that had them trailing him like majestic baby space ducks following their mother. They followed him right past the opening, huddling up to strike as one and to overwhelm the obnoxious Human. After a quick calculation, Wyn reached once again for his belt, but this time palmed a long, smooth cylinder.

He hefted the CryoBan Grenade and pulled out the pin. “Ice...Ice...baby...kark, I had something better for this,” Tyris grumbled as he lobbed the grenade into the gaggle of mastiff phalones crowding the entrance. The grenade detonated, rapidly expanding and freezing the dense moisture in the air. The resulting explosion sent tiny, deadly shards of ice spearing into the flesh of the mastiff phalones like a glass chandelier shattering.

The creatures cried out in pain and anguish, their bodies crumpling so that their corpses stacked into a veritable wall in front of the entrance. The room was now sealed, for better or worse. Nothing would get out, and nothing would get in.

Then there was another clicking noise, but this time it was from the opening cages.

“Could have went with: ‘You need to chill out!’” Aru said, quoting a famous line from a holovid. He moved away from the terminal and surveyed the Defender's handy work. “Hey, not bad...”

“Kark me, that’s much better,” Wyndell swore with a hint of appreciation in his voice. “Alright, so new deal,” he said as he turned to appraise the Aedile. “We cage a few of the stunned ones we have here, but we’re calling in an evac. Now.” Fatigue was definitely starting to edge into the Master’s voice, no matter how good he was at hiding it.

Tinker beeped his agreement. Aru seemed hesitant as he idly lifted the stunned mastiff phalones with the Force and guided them into the cages like giant pet pittens.

“Look, I won’t even take a split here. Eventually, you’ll learn that all the money in the world, debt or otherwise, just isn’t worth a damn if you can’t live to enjoy it,” Wyn explained, a rare hint of soberness in his tone.

Law thought about it for a good minute, then nodded his head a few times. “Alright, alright, you make a good point.”

Tinker beeped for joy, and was already calling for the ship.