Beyond - Legends No More Jedi (AU, OCs, Linked Vignettes)

Title: No More Jedi: Pain
Author: galactic-vagabond422
Characters: OCs,
Timeframe: 200-300 years after Yavin
Genre: Angst
Rating: PG
Summary: What drives a man to do the unthinkable, how does he pick up the pieces after losing everything. How does he deal with the ghosts of the past and his own guilt?
Disclaimer: Star Wars and related properties are owned by Lucasfilm Ltd.


Author's Note: Here's part seven showing us a look at the General in his quiet moments, in the moments he is alone. As always constructive feedback is encouraged.

Alone​

"It's ok Vidri," The general spoke his voice cracking, "It's ok, daddy's here." He could feel them, just on the edge of his eyes, tears, tears he'd never dare shed before his men, before the Republic. He was General Hierro Lionus, hero of Darth Malum's War, the man that held back the tide of darkness.

He couldn't let them see how much the war had taken from him. His son, his daughter, his everything, all he had left in this galaxy. A few of them still fell from his eyes as he held his daughter, her body wasting away as she couldn't overcome whatever kept her from him.

He could see she was in pain, suffering from what she'd done. She could never tell him what happened. She couldn't even speak, her mind was broken by the ordeal. What he did know was that the Jedi sent her to kill her own brother, to end the problem they started.

He hated them, hated everything they stood for, he would see them gone from this galaxy. So they couldn't harm anyone else, couldn't destroy anyone else's family.

He would bring an end to the cycle of light and dark, nothing would stop his goal. His proposal had been made to the Chancellor, now was only to wait. He had served the Republic for many years, through many campaigns he knew the value of patience, he could wait...but, not for long.

His senses felt something, someone coming, probably hospital staff to tell him visiting hours were over. He closed his eyes taking a long breath willing his pain away forcing his eyes to dry. Carefully he wiped his tears away on her pillow, before standing to his full height.

"Um...sir." the nurse started.

"I know...I know." the general said with a smile, "My time is up." He began to walk away turning one last time to look at his daughter. "Same time next week, my love."

"I'm sure she'll wake up soon." the nurse replied, returning the smile.

"Yes." he was lying, he'd felt his daughter's anguish, it was so great even he couldn't fix it and he had tried. He'd sat by her bedside everyday, in deep meditation using skills he'd hadn't accessed in years doing all that he could to bring his daughter back. It was to no avail, he could not breach the shadows that surrounded her. All he could do was make sure it never happened to anyone ever again.

He made his way back to his empty apartment in a tower high above Coursant. His boots rang out in the space, it was cold, too cold, and dark. Holos glowed as he walked past them, of his son, of his daughter, his wife. All of them gone, taken by the Jedi.

It felt like only yesterday Vidri was coming home showing him her first report card, they hung it up on the fridge of their base housing. He still had it buried somewhere in a box he kept in his room. He hadn't opened it in years, too many memories he wasn't ready to face.

He'd picked up some dinner on the way home, all that was left to do to have a nightcap. It wasn't every night just the nights he couldn't stop thinking, which were becoming more and more frequent. He poured a glass of clear liquor, 'Rancor Killer', an old vice that he picked up on Denon.

Sitting back in his chair, he looked out into the distance, watching the lanes of airspeeders move lazily out his window. He took long drink sitting in his empty apartment with all the lights on just to make it feel like there was someone else in the house. It blotted out the shadows that hide his painful memories. Another long drag and the burn settled into his stomach dulling his senses, it made the edges of his memory just a little fuzzy.

"Look at you." A cold voice cooed from behind him. A voice that shouldn't be here, not now. He stood up calling on the force to bring a weapon to his hand. Many years ago it would have been his lightsaber, now it was his blaster. Spinning around he laid eyes on the intruder, weapon raised to his eye.

"Sol?" He asked of the woman standing before him, dressed in brown robes a lightsaber hanging from her hip. Her shining blonde hair was cut short just like her daughter's used to be. Her brown eyes that once looked at him with such care now only held disdain. She looked the same as the day she left him.

"What are you doing?" She said ice in her words. "Destroying the Jedi, dismantling the order we both swore our lives to."

"Do not judge me," he hissed back, "you weren't here, you didn't see what they have done to our family."

"Do not blame them for the actions of a few."

"A few?" He shot back incredulous, "A few, if it is just a few then why do we deal with this every generation? The problem is not a few bad students it is systemic. The rot is with the order itself, not the people."

"Do you not see the good the order has done," Sol bit back not giving any ground to her husband, "the peace they've brought, the light they bring."

"Do you not see the death they have caused, the darkness that comes with them. The brightest lights make the deepest shadows." Neither party moved from where they were, Hierro had not lowered his blaster.

"So you would cast the galaxy into a shade of grey?" She thrust her hand out gesturing to the wide window that looked out over the most populated planet in the galaxy. "Where everything is done for the good of the many not the few? Where the enslavement of millions is justified for the safety of billions?"

"Do not lecture me on shades of grey," His voice was firm a touch of anger in his words, "you abandoned your family, left your son, your daughter, and me for what...a mission that you never returned from."

"I had to sacrifice, you knew that, you knew that the Jedi would always," her eyes hardened not flinching from his iron gaze, "always come first to me."

"You did what you had to for the greater good. Am I not doing the same?"

"Greater good?" Sol's face wore a mask of disbelief, "Removing Jedi will only bring more misery. Darkness still exists, and removing the best defense will only embolden it."

"No it will finally crush it, remove the breeding ground for so much pain and destruction." His tone remained low, almost threatening until it turned up, a bit of hope infecting his next words. "I will mold the next generation of Force Sensitives into the blade that will finally cut the cancer from the galaxy."

"You will subject the best of this generation to dersision and segregation."

"And you would prefer them put upon a pedestal treated with unearned respect?" The hopeful undercurrent was quickly gone from him, burned away by the source of his anger.

"We did not put ourselves there, the people of the galaxy did. It is not our fault that they looked to us for guidance." Sol was growing quickly impatient with her husband and his unwillingness to bend, to change his mind.

"No but, that didn't stop you from reaping the benefits. Using the light to blot out your many crimes."

"We have done nothing to would harm the galaxy, you are grasping at air."

"Really you've done no harm?" He lowered his weapon putting back into its place stalking forward,not far, just a step, "What about the broken families left in the wake of your conflicts, the indoctrination, the opacity and impunity with which you acted." He counted each act off on his fingers.

"We had act quickly, we couldn't be tied down with bureaucracy action had to be taken."

"And you dragged the Republic with you into war after war that we never needed to fight. Your rash actions have led to the deaths of trillions and you know it."

"Just admit it, you're only out for revenge. Dismantling the order I held above you."

"I am not so petty." the General replied eyes glaring at the woman that was once the center of his universe. "I only have the Republic's best interests at heart."

"Then why do you want to hurt it, to round up their citizens and force them into service."

"It is the only way."

"Your anger has made you blind." Her words cut him deep, deeper than anyone knew.

"And your idealism has blinded you." He shot back still going blow for blow. "You were so enamored with the Jedi that you didn't see what you were leaving behind. I would have moved stars for you."

"I didn't need you to...I needed you to look after our children."

The dam finally burst the welling anger he'd been holding back, hiding behind an iron mask finally burst forth.

"It wasn't my fault it was the Jedi that killed them, that took them away from me." His voice rung in the empty home, the only noise.

"If you were still with the order…maybe they wouldn't have." Her voice was unchanged, cold and biting.

"It's always the order with you...every time…" A tear began to sting his eye, "Did you ever care for me?" His voice cracked for just a moment as he closed his eyes, the tear rolling down his cheek.

As he open them, she was gone, she was never there to begin with, a trick of the light...or his guilty mind.