Chapter 38 – Mustafar (5)

"Yeah, if I was the chief engineer of the CIS, I wouldn't dare to show my face to anyone after creating such pieces of junks"

To Layan's mind, the B1- battle droid was one of the worst droid ever created. Their only advantage for the CIS lies in its extremely low production cost and fast fabricating process. As such, the Separatists disposes of a large army ready to submerge their foes at low cost. Overwhelm their foes by sheer number, this was the fighting way of the separatist battle droid army, really laughable.

Except the Droideka and MagnaGuards, all the droids forming the Separatist army are a waste of good metal and circuits.

"We shall start, I tinkered with the security and we shouldn't be disturbed by anyone, but let's not push our luck. Now, let me access your data bank, to input all your assassination skills in the new units."

After this, Layan transferred the schematics of HK-47 in the computer of the industrial complex, modified them a bit and launched the production of the droid. Soon, the complex was filled with noises as the new parts were created following the schematics downloaded by Layan.

While the droids were manufactured, he was searching for any interesting piece of information's but nothing really interesting was here, and what could be exploited, he knew it already as Sidious used it during the time of the Clone Wars or during his reign as the Emperor.

"Too bad, I wanted to find where Sidious was hiding the Holocrons he inherited from Darth Bane legacy."

Soon, a batch of 24 newly designed droids he chose to call the HK-61 series droids appeared. They had the same face as the HK-77 engineered by the Separatists. He also modified the vocal transmitter for a more normal speech and add slights changes to the personality matrix.

He would have change much more, like the color to differentiate them from HK-47, but the droid was adamant about not changing the rusty red color and leaving the program untouched so that they would call organics as meatbags.

He manufactured two B1 battle droid to replace those he cut down and put their memory core inside the new shell, as for the old ones, he threw them into the lava. Before leaving, he made sure to leave no trace of his passage and wiping clean every manufacturing machine's memory.

"Statement: I stay the best, no one equal me. Even myself."

Layan almost got a giggle watching the old droid pridefully talking about himself, but he wasn't wrong. HK-47 count kill was overwhelming, not only normal people, but even Jedis or Siths were slain by the assassin droid and faithful companion of Revan.

"We will depart once they will be loaded in the ship."

The Phoenix wasn't made to transport droids, as such, Layan put all of them in the training room and deactivate them for the time being and would later stock them in a warehouse on Ossus.

Mustafar was a worthwhile trip, he found a curious Jedi relic, fought an obscure group of force-users, found a Sith holocron and created a small group of HK-61 for his personal use. Not a bad day.

The cube and the holocron were now stocked in the safe of the Phoenix with the bunch of lightsabers Layan scavenge on the dead bodies. He plans to build his dreams twin lightsaber he always wanted to, but couldn't because he was lacking time and resources.

During the trip, Layan took out the Sith Holocron out of the safe and tried to open it. The holocron was of pyramidal shape, black in color and with intricate designs carved on it and ancient hieroglyph written at the bottom of the device.

As even after several minutes, he wasn't able to open it, he tried to use the Force Rage skill to call upon his dark emotions and open the old holocron.

As soon as he did, the black pyramid lit up with a red color. The now colorful red pyramid was giving a dark presence, creating tremors in the Force.

Layan had to steel his focus to not feel sick and continue his endeavor, the small pyramidal device raises in the air, the top of the pyramid and each bottom corner started to turn on themselves before getting back on the main body of the holocron.

A masculine voice echoed in the room as the device was finally pieced up.

"You found my legacy. You're seeking my powers. My knowledge. You killed my descendants. DIE, YOU THIEF AND USURPER!!"

At the beginning, the voice was calm and low, but as the voice continue speaking, it was howling with rage at Layan and the holocron presence in the force became darker and sent a blast of dark energy at him.

Layan was taken by surprise as the voice became offensive, but he was on his guard even before it spoke as he was currently trying to open a Sith Holocron. He uses the force to resist the energy blast and then focus the force to close the holocron, every corner rotated in reverse and soon the holocron was back in its original shape.

"Tch, I thought as a Sith he wouldn't care about a few dead men. Seriously, they are always killing each other, why would he care?"

"Statements: Siths care about fame and legacy. In killing the members of his organization, you destroyed his legacy, thus his rage."

HK-47 was standing in the corner of the room, watching over Layan failed experiment of opening the Sith Holocron found on Mustafar.

"I forgot, you met more Siths than I in all my life, and even had one as a master for a time. You'll have to tell me everything you know about them. Maybe we'll find a way to make that asshole spit everything he knows. And if not, I'll have to find a way to extract the knowledge of the holocron differently. I'll read the books for the time being."

Layan checked the few books one by one and chose to read the diary of the founder of the Blackguard, the organization which he bloodily massacred the members on Mustafar.

He sat in the pilot seat in the cockpit, and let T3 worked while reading the book.

Vulta Danaat, it was the name of the Blackguard's founder. He was a member of the Brotherhood of Darkness, an organization built on the ruins of the Sith Empire. This organization prove to be fragile and far less powerful than the previous and was annihilated 10 years after its creation.

To kill the Army of light led by the Jedi who was at their door, they tried to create a thought bomb, but finally lost control of it, annihilated themselves and the army of light at the same time. The only thing really important about this organization was that it was in it in which Darth Bane made his first appearance.

Vulta Danaat disagreed with the teachings of the brotherhood and left to explore the galaxy, searching for Force Artifacts. After some time, he settled on Mustafar and created the Blackguard as an organization made to follow his own philosophy.

"Nothing worthy of interest except a few interesting historical clarifications. At least I got his point of view about the dark side, it could be useful."

Layan was still reading the diary when the Phoenix left hyperspace and came into view of Ossus.

The Phoenix landed at his usual place near the settlement. No one came to see them this time as they were still training under the two old jedis.

Layan took the holocron and the mysterious cube before heading toward Ood's location. While he and HK-47 were walking toward their destination; Lyn ran toward them with an excited expression on her face.

"Welcome back."

"Thanks. So, how was your break?"

"A bit of training in the morning, and racing or swimming in the morning. A bit boring in the long run."

The girl followed suit and looked at the droid after explaining her enjoyable but tiring break. She was looking at HK-47 with an interested expression on her face before a sly smile came to her face.

"So, this is your droid lover?"

Layan smiled at her joke while remembering their last sparring session and her childish Dun Möch attempts, but the droid didn't take it the same way, or he did but Layan couldn't identify the hunter killer droid sense of humor.

"Query: Can I kill the female meatbag?"

He pointed a blaster at her forehead but didn't pull the trigger, knowing the droid's skills he could have killed her even before she could react.

"You can try metalhead, but I don't think you will like the results."

She raises her lightsaber and was ready to fight with a joyful grin on her lips.

"Stop your games, you two. If you want to fight, I'll organize bouts of training but not now."

They soon reach Ood and he was really surprised when Layan presented to him the two artifacts he brought back from the volcanic world.

"I don't know how to forcefully open a Sith Holocron, no one was able to. Even those stocked inside the library were only ever open by Exar Kun after his theft, but I can help you about the cube. It reminds me of a Jedi Master I met once, Chu-Gon Dar. The cube gave the same feeling as when I saw him perform a feat only him had the secret of. Follow me."

After a short trip to the now restored Great Jedi library, Ood led them to the storage room where was stocked every Siths artifact retrieved from the library. They walked in front of the statue of Freedon Nadd kept as a warning of the dark side, like before.

Ood put an old mask Sith, a bracelet and the cube on a table. The old bracelet seems normal, while the mask was giving a bad vibe.

"Chu-Gon Dar was able to perform transmogrification…"

"Meaning?"

Lyn was totally lost when Ood talked about it, and she wasn't alone in this case.

"Transmogrification can be defined as altering the very nature of something, Chu-Gon Dar could alter the special properties of artifacts. Look."

Ood put the bracelet in front of the cube, but nothing happened. Even after Ood infused the force in it.

"This bracelet is just a normal trinket. Now watch the results with this old Siths mask made to destabilize the mental condition of the wearer. It was made to torture Jedis and make the captive fall to the dark side. A short exposure only gave headaches, but a prolonged exposure can make fall even the most experimented masters."

Layan put it on to verify Ood's saying, and it was true it could feel a slight headache after a few second wearing it. After he gave it back, Ood put it before the cube and something happened.

The mask was engulfed in a force current coming from the cube, and when the cube stopped working, they could feel the mask nature changed. It wasn't dark anymore.

"Put it on."

Ood gave back the mask to Layan. He hesitated a bit but finally put it on his face and could feel the drastic change it undergone. It was soothing, he could feel his mind at peace, clearer and more focused.

"Its properties changed; it has a mind stabilizing nature. Maybe it could even bring back someone from the dark side, if its properties were truly reversed."

After putting off the mask, he announced his discovery to Ood.

"This cube must have been made by Chu-Gon Dar like I thought. As it is not a living thing or intelligent like a holocron, it's unable to change the nature as we wish, but can only reverse the nature itself of the items exposed to it."

Ood was happy of this discovery as it could help their group and transform Siths artifacts into weapon made to use against them.

"This mask could be used to help Vima stabilize her mental condition. This cube is really interesting and gave me good ideas."