Aherk Formidonis was an insane scientist, Dark Jedi, and former member of the small group known as the Family.
Early Life[]
Very little is known of Aherk's beginnings. It is known that he was born into a family of the Coruscant elite, although exactly when or where is unknown. His family, however, were underground crime bosses, running small operations on several worlds, their influence (parental and financial) hiding him from the Jedi. When he was four, however, things changed. A deal his parents made with some of the higher crime bosses went sour, and his home was raided as a result, both of his parents murdered. He didn't witness it; he felt it. Aherk was unaware of his Force sensitivity, something his parents had kept from him in the hopes of him leading a life of normalcy and decency, their logic being that if he never knew of his Force talent, he would never use it. As such, the boy was completely unprepared for the psychic backlash, which drove him completely (and imperceptibly) insane.
A Childhood Lost[]
Formidonis was taken in by his grandfather on Naboo after the horrific event, although the two were not close (but not for lack of trying). Aherk's ability to grow close to anybody had been utterly destroyed, constantly fearing the excruciating torment he felt at the moment of his orphaning. Knowing the boy needed at least some form of companionship, however, the old man gave his grandson an old R4 unit of his to toy around with. But it did far more than provide companionship; playing with the R4 gave Aherk a sense of control, a sense of power. Playing turned to tinkering, tinkering turned to rewiring, and rewiring turned to construction. In a year, the R4 was running like new, and almost completely unrecognizable.
Later in his childhood, Aherk still kept to himself almost entirely, although his genius and skill continued to grow. In his teens, he was coding droids and building machines in addition to his studies, using the knowledge he gained to further his own experiments. In addition to this, Aherk also studied Teräs Käsi with a teacher, his Force sensitivity giving him an edge. This was all in public view. However, in the dead of night, Aherk would train himself in the Force, regularly copying files from anywhere he could get his hands on them in order to push his skill upward. However, it was not a field he devoted much time to; even without the psychic trauma that was the root of his hidden madness (or perhaps because of it), Aherk was not very strong in the Force. But despite this, Aherk had mastered one particular skill. Subconsciously, Aherk had mastered Mechu-deru, which had allowed his mechanical genius to flourish.
After finishing his secondary education, Aherk vanished.
A Life of Death[]
Aherk Formidonis re-emerged years later, his assets multiplied and his insanity now obvious, brought to the forefront by the Dark Side. He had declared war on the universe, feeling that if none of it existed (as he had believed all his life), it wouldn't matter if he slew them all. In this pursuit he had wasted little time; he took on an apprentice in the form of Eliana Shan, a young girl every bit as talented and tortured as he was, and had built an assassin droid of unparalleled capability in the form of KR-03. Furthermore, he had built himself a set of armor, incredibly potent thermal detonators, and an insanely fast mynock-shaped jet board. His Force talents, while still relatively weak, were refined to their maximum, and Formidonis could have easily been one of the most formidable Teräs Käsi practitioners of his day. Formidonis had even built his first lightsaber almost entirely on instinct and his Mechu-deru skills, having forged each component himself. Formidonis was now not only a deranged genius, but a fully-fledged Dark Jedi.
The Oilblot and The Jedi[]
But Formidonis' crowning achievement lay not in physics or engineering, but in biology. A secret project, kept even from Shan, Formidonis had created a monster. A black blob at first, the resulting symbiotic organism was the result of years of research and testing; a primal intelligence, harnessing ysalamiri genes to not only protect itself from Force attacks, but to amplify its host's own Force sensitivity and feed off of the Force itself. However, the incredible power also had a trade-off; as its cells multiplied to cover the host's body, so did its intelligence, which could easily render its host under the symbiote's control. Further, as the Force utilized midi-chlorians, the host would eventually be completely without command of the Force. This was even worse if it attached itself to a non-Force sensitive being; the host would be drained and lifeless within minutes.
Formidonis field-tested the organism on Coruscant's Jedi Temple, seeking to slay the Temple's younglings. During this, he fell afoul of the Jedi Vidalu Na'an, who was charged with protecting the youths. In the ensuing battle, Formidonis came within a hair's breadth of slaying the young Padawan, but a critical strike (all but permanently fusing the symbiote to his body) by Na'an and Jedi reinforcements forced Formidonis away.
The two met once again on the Coruscant streets much later, where Na'an finally managed to rip the symbiote from Formidonis' body, plugging the gash she had made in his abdomen earlier with her own cloak.
The Senator[]
Healing under watch, Formidonis managed to escape custody discreetly, stealing a cargo vessel after killing its operators and returning to Corellia. Finding that his apprentice had abandoned him, the Dark Jedi programmed KR-03 to find and kill Vidalu Na'an, using his memory to draw up a rough sketch of her before arming himself and returning to Coruscant to wreak senseless havoc once more.
Taking flight on his mynock glider, Formidonis swooped down on a small group right outside the Senate building immediately after blowing up parts of it, grabbing the unsuspecting Vyra Amirana, the senator from Naboo. Jetting through the skies of Coruscant, the pair ducked and weaved through any traffic they could avoid, with Formidonis annihilating anything they couldn't. But it wasn't long before the Jedi and the Senator's security detail were on the chase, among them Raan Jade and, funnily enough, Vidalu Na'an. Eventually crashing down at the Jedi Temple, Raan's words, Vyra's compassion, and Na'an's sheer stubbornness to turn him from his path eventually won out, and too exhausted to fight, smiled at the short Jedi as he lapsed into unconsciousness.
A Family Found[]
An uncanny company, the group eventually banded together after the ordeal, becoming a sort of Family, fulfilling the requirements in all but blood. This group eventually came to include others such as Dash Burik Vos, Kirith Aridigo, and even Formidonis' old apprentice, Eliana, and her brother, Cao. His mind clear for the first time in years, Aherk stayed with the group as a way of atoning for his madness, despite Raan's claims that he couldn't have known better. His assumed "Sith" name of Formidonis was shortened to Formi by his new friends, Aherk himself hoping to put his past behind him. But even while actively trying to lock his past away, it crept up in his pursuits with the Family; Aherk was known as the group's hothead, rushing into the fray and stopping only to rush to an ally's aid.
Still the pragmatist, however, Aherk sought to turn his weapons of darkness for good. In the hopes of converting his bioweapon symbiote, he convinced Na'an to bond with it for a short time. It didn't work as hoped; Vidalu was brought to the brink of despair as the two moved throughout Coruscant, feeling the beast's insatiable thirst. The event drove Aherk's damage home, and the bond the two shared, forged in the fires of conflict, grew stronger as a result, as did his determination to right his past wrongs. Before too long, Aherk and Vidalu fell for one another entirely, and he found the courage to propose. She said yes.
A Villain Reborn[]
But it wasn't meant to be. His fiancee was grievously injured in an explosion during a conflict on Naboo, far beyond any healer's help. To save her, Aherk offered himself to the Dark Side itself, his oldest friend, willing to exchange his own life for hers. Bogan accepted, and Formidonis' insanity was restored, his powers now increased tenfold to serve the purpose of purposeless mayhem. However, it was not of his doing; he was bonded with a Force Demon, a slave to its will. Na'an, fearing for her fiancee's safety, in turn met with the Dark Side's embodiment to plea for Aherk's life. Failing, a stipulation of his contract requiring her death as an escape clause, she turned her lightsaber on herself.
This didn't work nearly as well as anybody had hoped. Aherk's goodness was restored, but upon learning of her sacrifice and that he had done this to her, he went insane with grief; he couldn't live knowing he had forced her into such a position, cementing a long-held belief that he didn't belong in a cabal of heroes.
When Na'an eventually tracked him down on the Mustafarian shores, outside a factory Formidonis had acquired in his missing years, a line had been drawn in the black sand. Knowing that being together was impossible, the two argued in circles about what the other had done, until Formidonis finally attacked his lover. Her pleas for him to stop only further enraged him, knowing that she was pleading for a life that she knew he could no longer give her, but insisted on demanding the impossible from him. Eventually, knowing it was hopeless, Na'an fought back with the best of her ability, ending her lover's life with a single clean stroke, right along the same path that her blade traced that marked the start of their long union.
Legacy[]
Vidalu Na'an eventually went into hiding, Aherk's death being the first of a long chain of events that whittled down her self-confidence. Later on, a clone Formidonis had made in the event of Na'an's death, strengthened by samples of his symbiotic bioweapon, met her original and her end. The Family itself, for multiple reasons including its inability to keep Formidonis alive and sane, fell apart completely, its members scattering across the galaxy in relative obscurity. Eliana Shan, Aherk's apprentice, was killed by a TIE Phantom over Mon Calamari. His masterpiece evolved into the Corruption, although it no longer exists in its original form.
KR-03, however, remains at large.