Chapter 45 –Robbery

Layan was disappointed by the outcome of his fight with Pre Vizsla. The said man fought to a standstill against Ahsoka Tano, who used the uncommon reverse Shien fighting form and was extremely skilled from what his master said. He also fought against Maul, one of the most infamous duelists for a good time before losing.

Even when pushes come to shove, Vizsla shown no innovative or improvement in his skill set, it only means that he would make incredible progress during the next five years. If Layan played with the mandalorian so much was that he was searching for a strong opponent. Ever since his reincarnation, he had no strong opponent to fight. Before this, his life was an unending series of fights.

It explains why a feeling of stagnation came to him. Even though he fought using the training droids to train against Jedis like Windu, Dooku or Kenobi replicas, he was unable to determine how strong he is compared to the originals. As for Sidious, Windu and Yoda, he knew he had no chances to win.

He trained with Shaak Ti for five years, had some battle experience and at her death lived almost two years honing his skills through a continuous flow of battles. Be it in years of training or battle experience, he was far from them. He was able to fight against Vader and kill the Emperor's shadow guards, but now he lost these cues to gauge his strength.

Layan watch as the droids brought Pre Vizsla and two others members of the Death Watch under custody in the Phoenix. Ever since the end of his fight, sadly interrupted by HK-47, he was grumbling and complaining to the droid.

"Master, this way you look a lot like me."

Lyn didn't miss the occasion to laugh at him as he was rumbling.

Pre Vizsla was stripped of his armor and all equipment's. He was thrown into the training room, handcuffed and kept under watch of eight HK-47 series droids. Then, they took off the ground and flew the Phoenix with the cloaking device on toward the base hiding the storage room of the Vizsla clan.

The ship landed in the middle of the hideout while still being invisible and using communication and sensors jamming. Stealthily, a dozen of HK droids infiltrated the hideout and assassinated the mandalorians keeping watch in the outside one by one.

The droids were really proficient in this killing method, after all it was their primary program. Compare to the abilities displayed previously, the efficiency was higher and swifter.

"Let's head inside and loot a lot of money and relics."

Layan mood finally alleviated when thinking to the relics waiting for him in the storage room. Taking care of Pre Vizsla was really a good idea, after buying everything necessary to build the settlement on Ossus, his funds run dry. But the datacard found in Vizsla office contained financial files with a few millions of credits, not really astonishing from the governor of a moon and leader of an underground organization.

"Yeah let's. It will take us all day."

Inside the base, they walked through the corridors and killed the few members of the Death Watch surprised to see intruders undetected before coming so deep inside their hideouts.

Finally, after a few kills, they stepped once again into the secret storage room of the Vizsla clan. Outside, a few HK droids were keeping watch in case of uninvited guests.

"Store the most cumbersome items first. As for Knight of Zakuul armor, put in my room, I thought it was lacking decoration, and also add the neo-crusader mandalorian armor with it."

"Kriffing meatbag master, we are made to assassinate not move the furniture's."

One of the HK-61 droids complained but started to work nonetheless. Changing their personality for a more choleric one was something he did to distinguish them from the original with the modification of the head, and the speaking modulator as HK-47 was adamant about the rusty red color and letting them call organics as meatbags.

"Statement: You used me as a model, but they are still lacking my impressive personality and sense of humor."

"If they were all like you, I would go crazy in no time. Revan may be even stronger than I thought as he was able to bear with your personality on a daily basis."

"Comment: it's obvious, my master was the best of all meatbags, be it Jedis or Siths, after him in the order came Bastila Shan and Meetra Surik."

Listening to the famous names got Layan's attention but didn't get time to ask the droid about them as he started to mode everything out, which made Layan raise an eyebrow of surprise.

They started with the totally wrecked Basilisk war droid. When they move it, pieces started to fall apart and Layan knew that it was in an even worse state than he thought. As there were no spare pieces left for this type of droid, he would have to create them, but he wanted to make it like the original in mandalorian iron.

The cost of the reparation would be huge, and to that would be added the cost of the upgrades Layan plan to add to made of it an unstoppable war-machine.

After several hours with the help of a dozen of droids, most of the storage room was emptied and everything was divided between the Phoenix and the two ships they captured in this hideout.

"I didn't want to, but I'll have to build a house on Ossus to store all this. Maybe be I could add a workroom to repair the Basilisk and a room to display all my antics, and even a library. The idea is pretty good, I'll do that."

Layan was whispering to himself when watching over the holds of the three ships.

"For the time being you could help."

Lyn was grumbling as she was working non-stop while Layan was dreaming about his futures house which will be filled with droids, antics and bizarreries.

"Yeah, yeah. Finish the job, I'll go see if our guests woke up."

He walked inside the training room serving as a temporary detention room and saw an awake Pre Vizsla laying on the ground, and two others still knocked-out surrounded by hunter killers' droids pointing their weapon at them while calling them meatbags with affection.

"I hope you like our hospitality. We'll soon depart to see an old friend of your family, to my mind you will enjoy the encounter. You'll finally be able to see what is a true mandalorian."

"True mandalorian? One of these stupid commandos created under Mereel's rule? They call themselves like this but they are not, I am, me and my group are."

"Shut it."

Layan nodded at one of the droids which used the electrostaff of the MagnaGuard to make the haughty mandalorian shut up. He was wriggling on the floor under the pain of electrocution.

'AAAHHH!!!"

"Enjoy your stay and don't try something stupid."

Layan left the room with these words and saw the droids bringing back the last few items on a repulsor trolley. After this, the two captured Kom'rk-class fighter/transport would head for Ossus with HK-61 as pilots, while the Phoenix would head for Kamino.

"Good, we're ready to depart, I already transferred all the credits in Vizsla secret bank account in a new one I just opened. I am now a millionaire, not a bad situation if I have to say."

Once their task completed, the dozen left of HK-61 headed back to the training room where Pre Vizsla was kept prisoner, now he really had no chance to escape. The other were divided in two groups of six and were piloting the two mandalorians ships.

The trip to Kamino would take some time, as the two worlds were really far away from one another. Layan planned to use this time to open the Sith holocron. He was now in his room with two armors as decorations, the Zakuul armor was really giving a good vibe to the room.

He was holding the Sith holocron, seated on his bed while the Phoenix was traveling inside hyperspace toward their destination.

The complexity and power of a holocron depend of the knowledge and the force of his creator. It was theoretically possible to open one forcefully, but those able to create Holocrons were all at an extremely high level of proficiency with the force. Trying to break into their masterpiece should be a deadly attempt.

"You want to try again to obtain my legacy, young thief? Dream on!"

A red hologram of a male near-human with a slightly red skin and high cheekbones showing some part of ancestry with the pure-blood Siths appeared. He had long black hair groom into a braid reaching his waist and was wearing an armor of old design.

"Now, let's play it Sith way. If you don't give me what I want, I will kill every descendant of the Blackguard left alive in this galaxy, and then I will destroy your holocron. This way Darth unknown famed name will vanish for eternity. You may have manipulated this group of idiots to venerate you, but you will disappear anyway. So, you like my idea?"

"You won't destroy my holocron! You need my knowledge, stupid child!"

A deep arrogance could be heard in the voice of the old Sith lord, but it made Layan smile as Sith holocron weren't as rare as everyone was thinking. It was just extremely dangerous to try to get his hand on one. Dangerous to a point where only a handful of the thousands of those who stepped on Korriban soil came back alive, and even less with a holocron in hand.

"I could as well go on Korriban, I knew of a few Sith Holocrons waiting to be picked up there."

"No one threaten Darth Anakkona!!!"

The Sith lord was howling at him with rage in his eyes. He may be only a remnant of consciousness, but still, the pride of the Siths was present in it. And it was precisely what Layan wanted. Someone as prideful won't let his legacy vanish.

"Either you comply or vanish in history."

The Darth Lord full of hate glare was still on him, but Layan was still smiling seeing it.

"See it as a fair fight. You can try to corrupt me with your teachings, or even hope for my death. This way your Holocron may fall into the hands of a Sith in becoming. I know you're not used to be on the receiving end, but this is the only deal I have for you. What is your answer?"

The silence dominates the room for a full minute before the Sith Lord talked.

"You may have something in you to become a Sith. I accept the deal."

Layan smiled, not because he succeeded but because he was thinking to Ood's technique of which the Sith was unaware that Layan was a practitioner.It could protect him from the dark side influence when studying it. It was really fulfilling to trick a Sith Lord, even a dead one.