Paranormalities: Episode I - Ch. 6 Invasion

"We have to leave! Now!" Grein exclaimed in horror.

"Okay, Grein. You never elaborated back at the Flying Lamp on why we need to leave" Zolph told her.

"Do you remember those aliens that tried to kill you back there?"

"Yeah, what about them?"

"They've brought back up."

"I'm not scared of a few more of them."

"By back up, I mean an entire army."

Zolph sensed something familiar. "I'm actually beginning sense it too, and I've sensed it before! You're not kidding, are you?!"

Girdretto then chimed in after being ignored. "What the hell are you two Jedi blabbering about now?"

Zolph then spoke to Girdretto. "Out of curiosity, Girdo, did you ever send some of your lackeys to the Flying Lamp Cantina to strong arm me?"

"No, I was having too much fun thinking about how you would try to get in to my house."

Zolph then spoke back to Grein. "I guess your fears are confirmed."

Girdretto then spoke again. "Does that mean you two will leave me alone now?"

A comlink on Girdretto's desk then started buzzing and the Toydarian answered. One of his lieutenants spoke. "Boss! We've got trouble down here! Some unwanted visitors!"

"Well, kill them, you moron!"

"They're of a species we have never seen before!" He was interrupted by something. "What is that black goo?!" His question was interrupted by some screams of terror coming from his associates, also as if they were being drowned. "No! No! I don't want to be one of you! Get away from me! Stay…" He then went from pleading for his life to screaming in terror. The screaming stopped midway through, and the lieutenant's voice had deepened, making animalistic grunts.

Zolph's cringed as he listened to the transmission. "I have a bad feeling about this. And by bad, I mean I might consider installing a suicide tooth after this." He then spoke to Grein. "I'm with you, let's bail this joint."

Girdretto then spoke. "Same with me! I'm getting out of here!"

Before the Toydarian could fly towards the door, Zolph interrupted him. "Hold it, Gas Gut! What about the guys you're paying to do your dirty work?"

"Forget about them! It's every man for himself!" He then opened the office door and flew out.

"You get back here, you coward!"

Grein then stopped him. "Let him go. I might not like what he's doing either, but we've got more important things to do than enforce morals."

They then headed out the door.

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As the two Force users moved through the estate's hallways behind Girdretto, they heard blaster fire and more agonized screams from behind another closed door. Girdretto backed away from the door.

From out of the crack under the door emerged a puddle of black goo, what Grein would dub Black Matter, moving on its own. Girdretto pulled out his blaster and fired at it, but it somehow dodged his shots. The Matter then lunged at him from off of the floor, grounding the Toydarian. He screamed as the Matter entered into his mouth and eyelid. Afterward, his body started contorting, his pale gray skin started to turn dark, his tusks grew to be sharper, his limbs grew to twice their length, and his fingernails and toenails turned into claws. His eye then opened, now looking exactly like Terraris's eye.

The now demon-like Toydarian dashed towards Zolph and used his claws to pin Zolph to the floor. He glared at Zolph and spoke with a demon-like aura. "Now, Vaelor. You will die in the name of the Col-!" He was interrupted by Grein igniting her lightsaber through his chest. His wings stopped flapping, his eye dimmed out and his light corpse fell on Zolph, who then pushed him aside.

Zolph looked Grein questioning. She responded, "It was for his own good. Let's leave it at that for now."

"So where is this ship of yours?" Zolph asked.

"These guys are most likely taking out the public docking areas. I've got my vessel where they can't get it."

The two moved on.

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As the two of them made their way to the hideout's main entrance, they encountered more Black Matter and several of Girdretto's thugs, now possessed and mutated by it and arguably scarier than their Toydarian boss. They eventually made it out the front door, only to be greeted by an entire platoon of the same hooded figures they fought at the Flying Lamp Cantina, pointing their guns towards them.

"Oh, Sithspawn." Zolph responded to the mob.

Grein then stepped forward and used the Force to toss the first wave of the creatures aside. The two of them rushed forward with their lightsabers ignited and cut down the creatures as they fired at them. The entire mob was shortly wiped out.

"You know, these guys are much easier to beat with a lightsaber" Zolph responded.



In Sleheyron's upper atmosphere, Zolph and Grein noticed what looked like a cross between a battleship and space leviathan, and out of it came several winged creatures with an eye in their mouth and grafted cannons as well as several bloated flying insects.

As some of the insects touched down on the surface, their rears opened up as if the creatures were dropships. Out of their rears came more of the masked humanoid warriors as well as some spider-like aliens with human-like torsos but still moved like spiders. Then dropping from the sky were colossal three-legged creatures with a hard shell around their head, one eye, mouth tentacles, a crystal above the eye, and a larger crystal for a cranium. If there's anything these creatures all had in common, it was their dark appearance and crystal-ball like eyes.

"Now I know why you were you so desperate to get off this rock." Zolph told Grein.



As they moved through the streets, they witnessed the colossal tripods, also what Grein would label Cthulopods, tearing down buildings with their limbs or burning them down with a laser fired from their forehead crystals. They also crushed, vaporized or devoured several fleeing citizens.

The starfighter-like creatures, dubbed Eyewings, were shooting down any vessels they could catch fleeing from public docking areas. If they didn't destroy the ships they caught, they would deposit some more Black Matter into the ships.

The spider-like humanoids, also known as Nidracha, waited in dark alleys to capture their prey in webs, either to be possessed or eaten alive. One of them tried to ambush Zolph from a wall, but he killed it by using the Force to slam a dumpster into it.



Moving forward, they encountered a lone Twi'lek mother and her child confronted by some Black Matter. The goo went for the child first, to the mother's horror before she too was possessed.

The mother then turned towards the duo and quickly lifted Zolph off the ground with her lekku, something Twi'leks are biologically incapable of. As he was being choked, he looked her in the eyes, and did not see any malice for a brief moment, almost as if she was trying to fight off the parasite's influence over her bodily functions before losing control of them altogether. Grein then stabbed her through the chest, ending her suffering. The child tried to sneak up on Zolph, but he quickly cut him down too, much to his regret.

"Just what in space is going on here?! I didn't come to this planet thinking I would kill civilians!" Zolph told himself with shock.

"We can't worry now, Zolph. We have to get moving" Grein told him.

"What about this planet?! There's genocide or worse going on here!"

"I don't like it any more than you do, but we can't save everyone here. If we are to have any hope of defeating them later, we need to live to fight another day. As I told you before, their main target is you."

"So why don't I just hand myself over?"

"A Jedi's life may be sacrifice, but doing that won't save everyone else. They only see you as a major obstacle to doing more of this."

"Fine, I can't save everyone and I need to live to prevent more of this from happening. But that doesn't mean we can't save anyone here while we move forward."

"I can allow that. Just don't die, okay?"

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Zolph and Grein moved through the main city's streets and saw more civilians being killed and possessed. He saw another family in danger of possession, but he fired his blaster at the Dark Matter before it could possess any of them, effectively evaporating it.

He and Grein moved through the streets killing more of the abominations and possessed civilians, much to their regret, and saved as little lives as they could. They eventually made it to Grein's housing complex outside the main city.

"Your house?! This is where you're keeping your ship?!" Zolph questioned Grein. "If you had a privately stored ship, you'd think that would be the first place someone would look!"

"It may be blatantly obvious, but they still can't get in." Grein then pointed to the sides of the door, revealing no access terminal.

"Then how are you able to get into your own home?"

"Watch and learn." Grein then put her hands together and her entire body as well her clothing turned into a puddle of water. The water moved under the crack in the door. The door then opened, revealing Grein fully materialized.

"What did you just…?"

"Some Force technique many don't learn to master properly."

"Okay, what about…?"

"Same way as Force Cloak."

"Or is your clothing not real and you are actually naked already?"

"Then how did my lightsaber liquefy?"

"Forget it."

Zolph then entered Grein's home.

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Grein's housing complex was pretty messy for someone no-nonsense. They eventually made it to the hangar, housing a Corellian YT-3300 freighter, which unlike other ships in the same series, had a centered cockpit and the ship was designed almost as if it looked like a tailless manta ray.

"Say hello to my vessel, the Blazing Manta."

"So there are YTs with properly-placed cockpits!" Zolph said enthusiastically. "Can I fly?"

"No." Grein answered.

"Why not?" Zolph asked with disappointment.

"Not after your incident during the Vong war."

Zolph got irritated. "How do you know about that?!"

"The whole galaxy knows about it."

"Did some brat record my incident and put it on the Holonet?! I swear that was only because the ship was an older model!"

"Calm down. I wasn't kidding about your incident's memetic status, but I was about my reason for not letting you fly, because I actually do agree with you on the design problems of the early YT-series freighters. I can't let you fly because I modified the controls to my liking, and I don't want some newbie crashing my ship in a desperate situation like this."

"Alright, I'll go open the hangar doors."



Zolph walked to a console and opened the ceiling. As soon as it opened, another creature from the invading group jumped into the hangar. It was a Juggernaut Beetle, Rancor-sized insect with a large shell on its upper body with two sickle-like arms and a crab-like lower body, both sections separated by an incredibly flexible spinal column.

"Was that thing waiting there the whole time? Talk about patience." Zolph asked.

"You distract that thing while I get the Manta ready." Grein told him as she entered the ship's boarding ramp.

"Alright, you overgrown bug!" He yelled at the creature. "You want to kill me?! Well, I'm right here! You want a snack? Well, you can taste my sword!" He then jumped towards the Beetle, but it pointed the back of its shell towards Zolph and soon as he landed on it, it threw him off.

It crawled towards Zolph and tried to stab him with its sickles, but he quickly dodged. He then yelled to Grein, "Are you done yet?!"

"Just one more minute!"

Zolph's attempts to attack the creature's backside were also thwarted when it bended its spine backwards, pointing its lightsaber-resistant shell towards him. He then came up with a plan.

He threw his lightsaber behind the Beetle. It positioned itself for the saber's comeback, but Zolph fired his blaster at the spinal column, provoking it into facing Zolph. The lightsaber then came back and bisected the creature at its spinal column. The upper half was still moving and tried to crawl towards Zolph.

Suddenly, one of the Blazing Manta's quadlaser turrets turned towards the Juggernaut Beetle and fired on it, penetrating its shell and killing it.

"We're all clear! Now let's get out of here!" Grein yelled.

Zolph entered the ship and the vessel took off.

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As the Blazing Manta exited Sleheyron's atmosphere, Zolph spoke to Grein as she piloted the vessel. "Okay, may I speak with you now?"

"Nuh uh!" She replied. "Gun turret."

"Oh right, we've got fighters to worry about!" Zolph then rushed to the Manta's gun turret.

As Zolph stationed himself in the turret, he got a closer look at the battleship he saw earlier, a Levioth. It had a face on its bow, but it also looked like it had a command bridge like a Star Destroyer. It was like an organic starship, similar to those used by Yuuzhan Vong, but much more animalistic in design and behavior. Some Eyewings then came out of its belly.

They flew towards the Manta and fired their cannons, but Zolph fired the ship's quadlaser back at one of them, causing it to explode in a mess of blood. He then took out the remainder of them one by one. The last Eyewing landed right on Zolph's station, but he fired back and caused the creature to splatter all over the viewport.

The Blazing Manta then made the jump to hyperspace.

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Now free of the chaos on Sleheyron and flying back to Ossus, Zolph could now question Grein further.

"Now that we're out of Hutt Space… Who the hell were those guys?!"

"I've dubbed those creatures Forceless."

"Where did you get that name?"

"You sensed something abnormal from them, right?"

"Yeah, that thing you sense when someone dies, except with them, it's more constant, like it's trying to eat at your soul."

"You're on track. As you may already know, the Force flows from life itself. When a life-form dies, part of the Force is extinguished with it, but is renewed with every new one coming into existence. However, if lots of lives are extinguished simultaneously, a wound in the Force is created, as I'm sure you've experienced at least once during the Yuuzhan Vong war."

"And I'm feeling those types of wounds when they're around."

"Hence why I call them Forceless. They represent a total absence in the Force. No Light Side. No Dark Side. Nothing in between."

"Are they undead?"

"No. They're somewhat alive, but they are unbound by the Force. Theoretically, they shouldn't even exist."

"These things are baffling. How do you know so much about these things anyway?"

"I've seen some of them before and have been researching them for years, but from what I know, they are not from this galaxy."

"What did I do to attract them to Sleheyron?"

"I assume you killing one of their leaders got their attention."

"Leaders?"

"You know that creature on Tatooine?"

"You mean Terraris?"

"That was an Archfiend. A high-ranking Forceless in the group I've dubbed the Forceless Collective."

"Okay. And speaking of that, why did you leak that info about his temple to Girdretto?"

"I deliberately let him take me as a slave and gave it to him to sell, hoping I would bring this issue to the galaxy's attention. By doing that, I hoped I could find the one who would help me with eliminating the Collective. Only thing I didn't count on was them bringing an army to Sleheyron."

"Okay, so you set me up by indirectly raising Tatooine's crime rate. Why not just tell us directly about the Collective?"

"Do you really think the galaxy would believe something like that? I needed you to see one of them for yourself. Also, I didn't want to cause too soon a panic in the wake of the Vong war."

"After seeing how bad they are, I don't blame you for going to such measures, but why Terraris?"

"He was the weakest of all the Archfiends, so I thought he would make a good first test."

"Weakest, my rear end! That thing almost killed me!"

"And that just tells you that you need to improve."

"And what about the Valkoran? How do they factor into all of this? They summoned Terraris."

"The Valkoran, being well-intentioned reformists, think they can help the galaxy with these things."

"Those idiots! Do they know what they're capable of?"

"They don't, but they're being manipulated by someone far more powerful."

"Maesterus? He's their leader, and I sensed Forceless-like readings coming from him, but I still sensed the Force coming from him."

"I think we've spoken enough for now."

"Are you trying to avoid my questions?"

"There are still some things I don't know and some things I simply can't tell you yet."

"Typical."

"For our report, I hate to do this, but we can't send the Alliance fleet to Sleheyron. First, it would be best if we kept the Collective 'quarantined' to Hutt Space. Second, we don't want to find ourselves in a three-way war between the Alliance, the Valkoran, and the Collective."

"Okay, I can understand that. But we do need to let the Alliance and the Order know about what the Valkoran are doing with the Archfiends. This war has suddenly become about protecting more than the Alliance itself."

"I wouldn't have contacted Luke Skywalker if I didn't want him to know about them."

"Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to get some rest. We've still got a long way to go before reaching the Academy, and today, as well as the past five years of my life, has just been a parade of freaks." Zolph exited the cockpit and headed to the crew quarters.