Hereson

"The last one is Hereson. Hereson has two goals in life: to shoot first, and to die last. Good luck trying to outsmart him, or outgun him."

"Remember that."

- Kaliv introducing Hereson to Salovan, before the Twi'lek added his own words.

Hereson was a male Twi'lek who lived during the Great Galactic War - and the preceding Cold War - between the Sith Empire and the Galactic Republic. One of the best and most famed gunslingers in the galaxy, Hereson had connections with pirates, Jedi, Hutts and Sith, and not all pleasant or friendly connections. Becoming famous for aiding the Jedi during the Great Galactic War, his skills with a blaster earned him jobs from every crime lord in the galaxy.

Early life
Born in 40 BTC, Hereson lived a quiet childhood. Born in a large town on Ryloth, Hereson lived in peace, like the rest of the galaxy, until 28 BTC, when he was 12. In that year, the Sith Empire returned after thousands of years, taking back their homeworld of Korriban and beginning a war with the Galactic Republic. Hereson remained on Ryloth for three years, before abandoning his family to join a brigade of soldiers to fight the Empire on behalf of the neutral Ryloth. Hereson never saw his family again, and never spoke of them again.

Hereson remained with the brigade - which was absorbed into the Republic military - for three years, before he began growing tired of orders. After proving his worth to the crime syndicate known as Black Sun, he left and joined the pirates, perfecting his new art and skill: using a blaster. Befriending another Black Sun recruit called Raan, Hereson and Raan did jobs for Black Sun, but after a few months, things went sour, when Black Sun made an alliance with the Empire: something Raan was in favour of, but that Hereson adamantly opposed.

Hereson soon found that Raan was becoming a pyschopath, killing for fun on missions and even shooting a child on Balmorra because it got in the way. Eventually, during a mission to raid a civilian refugee ship to kill a Republic informant, Hereson betrayed Raan, jettisoning him into space in an escape pod, before leading the ship to Coruscant. This was how Hereson met Yulic Namex.

Fighting the Empire
Hereson soon came into contact with Yulic Namex, a Jedi Knight with connections to smugglers across the galaxy. Hereson and Namex struck up a friendship, and began working alongside each other to fight the Empire. Hereson soon became a band of hundreds of smugglers called 'the Freelancer Corps', with the goal of uniting the criminal underworld against the Empire. This continued for two years, until Namex left active duty in the war and became a Jedi Master, instead protecting the Jedi Temple on Coruscant. The Freelancer Corps split, and Hereson soon found himself as a gun-for-hire due to his skills, while the war raged on.

Criminal life
Starting in 20 BTC and carrying on for another fifteen or so years, Hereson went from gang to gang, crime lord to crime lord, becoming a feared name in the criminal underworld, especially in the Outer Rim. Hereson soon built up multiple connections across the galaxy, working for Jedi, Sith, and for a short time: Mandalorians. His connections with the last two failed for two reasons, however. Firstly, he saw Sith as maniacs, and more often than not, killed them rather than working with them. Secondly, he viewed Mandalorians as cowards and glory-hunters, and strongly opposed their often murderous lifestyles.

Hereson's shooting abilities became his trademark. Able to shoot just about anything, no matter whether it was moving or not and at almost any distance under two miles, many thought he he supernatural abilities, and others thought he was a con. Many who assumed otherwise were often proven wrong by the gunslinger, and in the more violent of ways available.

Joining Kaliv
A year before the war would end, Hereson soon came into employment with a cyborg crime lord name Kaliv, who specialized in controlling certain sectors on planets and reaping the rewards. First operating on the ice planet of Hoth, far away from the war, Hereson bet a new recruit his own ship if he could make a pact with another gang that operated on the planet, the White Maw. Two days later, the White Maw and Kaliv were allied. However, Hereson didn't see the deal as genuine, killing the recruit and taking his ship back. This seemed harsh, until it was revealed that the recruit was a White Maw spy all along. After that, Kaliv shipped his subordinates to Dromund Kaas, the Imperial homeworld, to see if he could profit from the war, which the Empire were winning,

Another member of Kaliv's gang was Calara, a Mirialan engineer and pilot, who Hereson soon fell for, though he kept his feelings secret.

Meeting Salovan
On the same day of the Siege of Coruscant, a boy walked into Kaliv's hideout in Kaas City named Salovan, hoping to find a job. Kaliv and the others laughed the boy off, until he managed to steal Kaliv's blaster without anyone seeing. Impressed, Kaliv later watched Salovan kill an Imperial soldier spying on Kaliv, after a bribery deal went sour. Sal, as he was nicknamed, was then sent to prepare Kaliv's personal freighter for take-off at the nearby spaceport. He succeeded, and Kaliv soon introduced Sal to the higher-ranking members of his gang, Hereson included. There was also Calara, Kaliv's personal pilot, as well as Jorak, a Zabrak tasked with keeping control among Kaliv's men.

The gang arrived on Coruscant, only to see dozens of Imperial warships ruining the Republic capital. After Hereson tricked an Imperial officer into thinking Kaliv and his crew were Imperial agents, the gang arrived on the war-torn planet. Hereson and Sal went out on a patrol of the lower levels of the planet as the 'Imps' were leaving, and discovered two Imperial soldiers threatening to kill a mother and her child. Sal shot both soldiers with exceptional skill, gaining the praise of the local citizens of Coruscant, as well as Hereson's interest. The Twi'lek would then take Sal on as a protégé, training him with a blaster and teaching him what there was to know about being a criminal.

Calara's Defection
After three years of working with Kaliv on Coruscant as a gun-not-for-hire, Hereson soon discovered something shocking. After Calara discovered that Kaliv planned to start a complete, dictatorial take-over of Coruscant's lower levels, she abandoned the crime lord, fleeing to the upper levels. In return, Kaliv set out a 'Dead or Alive' warrant for the Mirialan. Hereson, gaining Sal's trust, went after Calara to protect her from Kaliv, though not before a street battle between the two gunslingers and one of Jorak's street patrols. After interrogating one of Kaliv's informants in a ship-yard, they found out that Calara was in a cantina named the Iridonian Mug.

After meeting with Calara again, the trio faced off against a group of Kaliv's men, who had found out where Hereson and Sal went after the informant betrayed them. During the fight, Calara was injured, and with no safe havens left, there was only one place Calara would be safe: Black sun territory, as Calara had ties with Black Sun, and while Black Sun hated Hereson for his betrayal, they hated Kaliv more for his competition. Arriving in Black Sun's stronghold on Coruscant, Hereson discovered Raan, who he thought to be dead, to now be leading the pirate army. However, Sal was able to disarm the guards, before reminding Raan and his men that they had a common enemy, and a mutual friend, the latter being Calara. Raan realized this, and despite his hatred of Hereson, declared a street war against Kaliv.

Leaving Coruscant
After two years of fighting Kaliv's gang alongside Black Sun, things went horribly wrong. Raan, finally letting his old grudges get to him, gave up Calara to Kaliv before attempting to capture Hereson and Sal. After Sal killed Raan's guards, Hereson shot his former comrade multiple times, ensuring that this time, he stayed dead. The duo, now on the run from every criminal in Coruscant, tracked Calara's journey, but were too late to stop Kaliv from getting to her, and were forced to watch Kaliv execute the woman Hereson loved. When Kaliv went off-world, Hereson decided that it was time to leave Coruscant, and hunt down Kaliv.

Infiltrating Kaliv's compound, they discovered that Kaliv had left Coruscant through different means, as his freighter was still there. Confronting Jorak in the hangar, Hereson tried to tell the Zabrak that Kaliv killed Calara (the gang had been tricked into thinking that Black Sun had killed Calara, who was actually a hostage of the pirates). However, Jorak wouldn't listen, and so Hereson killed him, before Sal and Hereson stole Kaliv's ship, with Calara's former astromech droid, T4-06, joining them, having known the truth behind his creator's death.

Nar Shaddaa
Hereson knew that the one place where any criminal could be found was Nar Shaddaa, as it was a hub for informants and the street-wise. Arriving on the planet and instantly thrust into an Imperial inspection, the check-up was interrupted by a large gunfight between Imperial soldiers and a group of 'rebels' called the Blue Oracle. Discovering from an Imperial prisoner that Kaliv was telling the Empire where Hereson was in exchange for credits - as Hereson still had a warrant after him from the Sith following the war - Hereson and Sal took refuge with an elderly man named Kolt, who was the true founder of the Blue Oracle.

Kolk, however, was not really an ally. When Kolk's home was attacked, Hereson discovered that Kolk had been offered amnesty for founding Blue Oracle if Hereson and Sal were given up. Ruthlessly, Hereson killed Kolk for his betrayal, before he and Sal went from operative to informant, trying to find out Kaliv's location on Nar Shaddaa. Eventually, they discovered that the cyborg was in an Imperial outpost in the heart of one of Nar Shaddaa's many sprawling metropolises.

Finishing the Job
After breaking into the outpost violently with the help of a former associate of the Freelancer Corps, Hereson and Sal confronted Kaliv in the office of an Imperial commander, who Sal killed. Kaliv made no pleas for mercy, accepting that he likely deserved death after all he had done. However, Kaliv asked for one last favour, that being for Hereson to give him a decent burial. Hereson coldly reminded Kaliv that the latter had broken enough promises himself, before executing him.

Hereson and Sal then left Nar Shaddaa, and for a year went around the galaxy, becoming pirates alongside Hereson's surviving friends from the Freelancer Corps and targeting Imperial shipping. However, Hereson found he was growing weary of the criminal life. Deciding to take a break 'at least for a few years', Sal took Hereson to Nal Hutta, where Hereson intended to lie low for a while, and in 5 ATC, the duo bid farewell, after five years at each other's sides.

Meeting Vidril
Within three months, Hereson found himself a job as a speeder mechanic, and began to settle into Hutta life. However, in secret, Hereson became a vigilante, often going out at night to hunt criminals, as well as kill any Imperial soldiers, agents and Sith that came to Hutta. This was at first rare, until Hereson ended up meeting Vidril Vesal, a Jedi Knight sent to Hutta to spy on Sith activities in the Outer Rim. Hereson revealed his connections to Namex, who it turned out, was Vidril's former Master. An agreement was made between the pair: that Hereson would get Vidril a job, a home and some food, and in return, Vidril would help Hereson with his vigilante work. Vidril accepted.

The duo's first targets were two rogue Imperial agents, who after a psychotic episode, had begun murdering random people on multiple different planets. Tracking the pair into the swamps outside the Huttese town of Jiguuna, Hereson duelled the one they called 'Shooter' in a gunfight, while Vidril used his lightsaber to fight the vibroblade-armed 'Stabber'. Both rogue agents were killed, an act rewarded with gratitude by Jiguuna's population.

Foras Mell and the Joforas
In 7 ATC, after two years together, Hereson and Vidril discovered that a Nautolan Sith Apprentice, Foras Mell, had arrived on Hutta to strike a deal with a galaxy-wide crime syndicate called the 'Joforas', Huttese for 'the Butchers'. Knowing that if they outright killed Foras, the Joforas would turn against them, the duo instead decided to join the gang, and frame Foras for a crime within, making the Joforas think he was an enemy. Unfortunately, Vidril was forced to remove his own fingernails, while Hereson was made to execute an innocent farmer who had failed to pay a debt. Knowing what was at stake, the pair went ahead with their actions, joining the gang.

Discovering a plant known as olven which could make a person appear to be dead, Vidril realized that Hereson could consume the plant and fall dead in front of the Joforas, before Vidril could frame Foras for killing Hereson to see whether the Joforas suspected the Sith. The gang rose against the Nautolan, who went on a rampage through their hideout, slaughtering dozens before Vidril shot him in the back. The Joforas began targeting Imperial assets within hours, the plan a success. However, Hereson was meant to be dead, and if he was seen alive on Hutta, the Joforas would know of the trick: he had to leave.

Reunion
Hereson contacted Sal to pick him up, after almost three years of not seeing his former protégé. Salovan made it to Jiguuna spaceport, meeting Vidril for the first time. However, the Empire knew of Hereson's presence on Hutta, and sent a Cipher Agent to assassinate the gunslinger. The agent injured Sal with a vibroblade, before Vidril killed the agent. While Hereson hid on Sal's ship, Vidril took the injured smuggler to a medical station, where the pair realized that they shared near-identical DNA. It turned out that they were half-brothers,but that Sal remembered having a sister from infancy, as he grew up in an orphanage. Hereson, on the journey back to Coruscant, told Vidril that the sister might be Force-sensitive, and it was in his best interests to find her.

On the return of the trio to Coruscant, all three were praised as heroes: Vidril was thought to have died due to his radio silence; Sal had helped the Republic following Hereson's move to Hutta; and Hereson himself was finally commended for his work during and after the War against the Empire. Vidril and Sal set out into the galaxy to find the third sibling, while Hereson reunited with Namex, after over two decades without seeing him.

Personality and traits
Hereson was far from social. Preferring his own company to others, he only got involved in conversations when he deemed it necessary, and made few friends. However, he kept those he befriended close, valuing their relationships and being very protective of his allies. The prime example of this was Sal, who Hereson viewed as a younger brother, needing protection and guidance when required. Hereson also held feelings for Calara, and was shattered when she died, though was more upset at the fact that he never told her he love her. Also, Hereson had a strong hatred for certain people, which he listed to Vidril during their first meeting: child-killers, Sith and Mandalorians. He also despised Kaliv, and was willing to go to extreme needs to get revenge on the crime lord following Calara's murder.

However, there was a brighter side to Hereson's personality, which the Vesal brothers brought out in him: his sense of humour. Hereson possessed a dark and sometimes blunt sense of humour, finding enjoyment and laughs in the bleaker moments of life. By the time he had returned to Coruscant, aged 47, he had also grown more optimistic about life, following his experiences with Sal and Vidril.

Physical characteristics
Hereson was a tall, sleak and slender Twi'lek, with yellow skin and triangular patterns on his Lekku, which, when he had his full apparel and hat on, were often rolled around his neck. He also had yellow eyes, which were unique to Twi'lek of his skin colour, and while he was quite slim, he did possess some muscle, and was a capable fist-fighter. He also had an exceptional stamina, and was very athletic. Normally possessing a deep, intimidating voice, Hereson was also a brilliant mimic and impressionist, as shown by when he fooled Imperial naval officers into thinking he was an Imperial intelligence agent during the Siege of Coruscant.

Hereson's apparel during the war and as a gunslinger consisted of a long, brown coat, with at least two white and brown shirts beneath. He wore combat trousers, leather gloves and thick but comfortable boots as well, and wore his trademark, wide-brim hat almost all the time, even indoors. He also had a scarf around his neck, which he often used to cover his mouth and his lekku, and was fully equipped for battle, with two bandoliers going over his chest, one for each shoulder.

Hereson had a total of four blasters. There was one for each hips holster he had, which were two, identical black blaster pistols he used for sudden or close-range engagements, and that could be drawn easily. He also had a blaster for each bandolier, both of which were also identical, being blue and white as a tribute to the Jedi he once fought alongside. These packed more of a punch, and he often used them either for attacking vehicles and breaking away cover, or for attacking targets at long-range due to the excellent velocity in each shot.

Quotes
"I still can't trust you."

"If I wanted you dead, you'd be dead! I can understand you not trusting me, but if you dare to underestimate my skill with a blaster, then I'll be sure to prove you wrong!"

- Vidril and Hereson, after Hereson discovered Vidril was a Jedi.

"There's also T4, of course!"

"Yeah, the scrapheap on wheels!"

- Calara and Hereson, as the Mirialan introduces Sal to 'the gang'.

"Well. Wasn't expecting that."

- Hereson sums up the thoughts of Kaliv's crew, as they first see the Sacking of Coruscant.