“That’ll be all, Mr. O?”
        “Yes, Josser. As always, thank you,” Grypht Ocarsh finished off his mug of lum and paid the old walrus, offering a weak smile.
        The barkeep took the credits and returned the Triceratops’ smile, then went into the back of the bar to begin closing up. With a sigh, Grypht tossed on his cloak and left the Drunken Drummer.
        It was late, of course. Grypht rarely visited the bar during the light of day. He rarely left his home during the day, for that matter. Speaking of home… the ceratopsian started off, venturing into a twisted maze of walkways, one of many in the lower levels of Nar Shaddaa. He walked upon the scum-encrusted sidewalk for several blocks, then came to an intersection. The way to Grypht’s little apartment continued on the level above the one Grypht was currently on, and was across the great chasm that was once a street. That didn’t bother the Triceratops in the slightest. Calling upon the Force, Grypht leaped over the inky abyss and landed on the walkway above.
        “Still have it,” the Jedi Knight chuckled softly to himself as he resumed walking.
        Normally, whatever rain that fell on Nar Shaddaa rarely reached the lower levels, but right then a good drizzle started up. Grypht ignored it. He had been trained for most of his life to not notice pointless distractions.
        What he did notice was that someone was following him. For Grypht, this was not unusual. Packs of vlbthers, monkey-like predators that flourished in the shadows of the lower levels, often followed him about, always staying out of sight and never attacking. Grypht concluded a long time ago that it was his sensitivity to the Force that piqued their curiosity.
        But these were no vlbther. No mere animal could emit the amount of malice Grypht was sensing through the Force.
        Grypht had a bad feeling about that as he ducked into a wide alleyway. The drizzle was growing into a downpour.
        “Halt,” a voice said coolly over the rain.
        Grypht turned to see five cloaked figures standing at the mouth of the alley. None of them looked friendly.
        The Triceratops figured acting coy was worth a try. “Can I help you with something?” he asked casually.
        That got a chorus of dark laughter from the five strangers.
        “As a matter of fact, Jedi, there is: you can die.”
        The strangers pulled back their hoods and drew red-bladed lightsabers. They took up a formation of two rows of two, with the last one, probably the group’s leader, in the rear.
        Red blades… Grypht thought back to when he was a Padawan, when he wanted to build a red-bladed lightsaber. Master DaGavrille had forbid it, however, claiming it was a mark of the Sith. Grypht’s thinking had always been that darksiders were simply uncreative…
        Snapping his mind back to the present, Grypht whipped off his cloak and drew his lightsaber from its sleeve holster. With the press of a button, he brought the humming energy blade to life.
        “So,” he said to his five opponents, “you are Jedi Hunters. Am I to be your prey this evening?”
        The leader, a fang-toothed shark, simply grinned and nodded.
        Grypht brought his white blade up in a defensive stance. “We will see about that.”
        The first two hunters, a rat and a monkey, began advancing. Reaching deep into the Force, Grypht called upon the blinding power of the Light Side. To the darksiders’ eyes, it was as if he was suddenly shining a painfully bright light. They recoiled, squinting at the radiance.
        With his foes incapacitated for the moment, Grypht flew into action. In a single spinning motion, he bisected the ape at the waist and decapitated the rat. The blinding had by now worn off, and the other three Hunters seemed unnerved at seeing two of their number slain so quickly. Nevertheless, one of the remaining three, a bug-eyed fly, charged the Knight, his saber casting an odd glow in the rain.
        Grypht met him with a huge overhand blow. The fly blocked it, but was nearly knocked to the ground in doing so. The darksider apparently failed to take Grypht’s considerable strength into account. Recovering quickly, the fly retaliated with a thrusting stab. Grypht sidestepped it and unleashed a powerful side kick into his opponent’s chest. The insectoid slammed into a wall, seemingly out of the fight.
        The Triceratops extended his zone of awareness outwards, and detected the vixen coming up behind him. He turned to face her, but not quickly enough to avoid a roundhouse kick to the teeth. Grypht stumbled from the blow, and slipped on a patch of wet duracrete. The darksider stabbed down at him, aiming to skewer the Jedi through the chest. With Force-enhanced reflexes, Grypht dodged out of the way and responded with a Force push. The vixen went flying back into a few foul-smelling garbage canisters, and Grypht seized the opportunity to get to his feet and reclaim his saber.
        Over the constant drumming of the rain Grypht heard the hum of a lightsaber behind him. Whirling about he saw that the fly had recovered and was attacking again. This time, however, the insectoid maintained a heavy offense, preventing Grypht from unloading power blows that could bowl the fly over if he blocked them.
        The Jedi heard charging footsteps, and guessed the vixen wanted another try. After parrying a swing from the insectoid, Grypht leaped up over the fly’s head and delivered a midair kick from behind. A cry of surprise and the sudden smell of burnt flesh told Grypht that his plan had worked: the fly had stumbled forward and ran himself through on the vixen’s blade.
        Out of the corner of his eye, Grypht spotted the shark. He hadn’t moved since the fight began, and seemed to enjoy being a spectator.
        The vixen, meanwhile, was not amused by Grypht’s trick. She unceremoniously freed her blade from her comrade’s corpse and came at him again. The Triceratops was hard pressed to defend himself from the hail of blows the darksider rained upon him. Grypht sensed the waves of anger coming off his opponent, and came to the conclusion that she had entered a darkside Rage, which would explain the unnatural strength she suddenly possessed.
        No tricks with this one, the Jedi thought, Have to fight her straight on. As their sabers hissed and clashed in the rain, Grypht noticed that the shark still showed no intention of joining the fight. The vixen, however, did not seem concerned with her superior’s apparent apathy. In fact, she showed little concern for anything except gutting Grypht. The Triceratops went on the defensive and waited for an opening.
        That opening came after deflecting a particularly vicious two-handed swing. With lightning speed the Knight stabbed his blade in, then pulled it off to the side. The vixen’s eyes locked with his, flared with one last burst of anger, then became lifeless as she fell to the ground.
        Only one left… Grypht turned to face the shark, but as he did an invisible, iron grip wrapped itself around his throat. As he struggled to breathe, Grypht heard the shark cackle.
        “Excellent work you’ve done here, Jedi,” the darksider waved a hand at his slain comrades. “Gevta, Hesar, Viv’zzz, and dear sweet Seisha tried their best, but it will be me laying your saber at my superior’s feet… and collecting all the subsequent credit, I my add.”
        Grypht paid no heed to the shark’s boasting. He focused his attention on a broken piece of duracrete sitting a few meters behind the shark. The darksider was too busy gloating to notice it was beginning to move slightly…
        “It’s almost a shame, really, to end this hunt so-“
        THONK!
        The piece of duracrete slammed into the back of the Jedi Hunter’s head, pitching him face first to the ground. Now free of the grip, Grypht raised his saber and waited for his opponent to rise. He then noticed the severity of the head wound. The Hunter would never rise again.
        “An ignoble death for an ignoble soul. Fitting,” Grypht muttered.
        After taking a moment to catch his breath, the Triceratops set about taking his fallen foes’ weapons- not so much for the sake of trophies, but because he did not want lightsabers to fall into the wrong hands… and there were plenty of those on Nar Shaddaa.
        He did not need to worry about disposing the bodies: already they were slowly burning away, consumed by the dark powers they had lost control over.
        His business finished, Grypht silently continued on his way home.