The Force Wills - Chapter 138

“For us to have this conversation we need to be in a different place,” I held out the palm of my hand towards the Grandmaster.

Yoda briefly considered me, then gave a look to his holocron, who only nodded.

The weathered three fingered hand touched mine.

The temporary Bond was extended, accepted and I pulled both our consciousness into the endless realm of black stone and white light within the Darksaber.

He looked around with a frank fascination laid bare on his features, his pointy ears twitching as he stood and walked around my seated form.

“The Darksaber, this is. Padawan, why bring us here, did you?

“It is here that we can truly be alone. The Darksaber itself is creating a buffer between us and the Force. It naturally can’t cut us off completely, but this is good enough for our purpose.”

Yoda stopped in front of me, closing his eyes. I felt him reach out in the Force, confirming my words. “Necessity this is, you believe. Most troubling, padawan. Implications, disturbing.”

“The actions of the enemy necessitate it, Master. Surely you’ve felt what I call the Shroud over Coruscant. It does more than just obscure our sight of the future.”

Yoda harumphed, “Since it fell, studying and meditating on it, I have. More did you discover?”

I bore his skepticism without taking umbrage, knowing its true source. “Yes, I did. My discovery is precisely why this conversation has been so long in coming. Why I’ve only ever spoken to your holocron about it. You’ve probably made some very educated guesses already. However, you won’t allow yourself to make the biggest one, because it is so frightening and utterly anathema to your convictions, beliefs and dare I say it, dogma.”

I felt Yoda’s brief anger at my temerity to declare that even he, the great centuries old Jedi Grandmaster, was afraid and blinding himself out of that fear.

He outright scoffed, now walking back and forth, his gimer stick’s tapping, strangely echoing back to us, even though there was nothing to conventional reflect sound.

Yet, finally, before he could dismiss my words as arrogant nonsense - he caught his own thoughts and stopped dead. His green-gold eyes widened, his ears drooping and he stared at me with a partially open, even astonished expression.

I felt his presence in the Force, narrow down, inward, as he truly looked at himself, for the first time since the Shroud had fallen.

It was so subtle and insidious.

Now that we both had the buffer of the Darksaber surrounding us, not to mention the purity of the Force Nexus, the minor inroads that the enemy’s great work had been chipping into my own mind and thoughts was clear to see.

“You see it, Master Yoda? The sheer genius and dilemma that Darth Sidious has forced on the Jedi. The Shroud, the cloud of the Dark Side, the Clone War that he has unleashed on the galaxy. He has used Coruscant itself as the giant anchor for it, not just politically. The very ancient Sith shrine that the Jedi Temple was built over eons ago, as a rather futile effort to purify it, has become the lynchpin of the technique. The natural Dark Side of the planet, all the near trillion sentients on it, those who die, kill and struggle, all of it, just more fuel for the fire. He has subtly corrupted the Force itself and in so doing, in the very act of us being Jedi, as we open ourselves up to the Force’s strength, guidance and will, it allows him to blind us. More importantly, he is misleading us. Not merely in some vague notion of misdirection but literally, actively, as we would be standing across from each other and he might as well be right there. You have a secure meeting of the Council, he is there. You stand in the chancellor’s office, he is there.”

My words acted as they should.

Giant turbolaser blasts of realization crashed upon Yoda’s mind.

I hadn’t even truly begun yet.

“No…” The word seemed to tear itself from his lips before he closed his eyes and focused even harder. The Force bent outward now, quickly becoming a storm with Yoda at its center. He entered a state of calm, with a will that might as well have been neutronium. It was almost beautiful to watch, a display of mastery of self that spoke of centuries of effort and practice.

Yet it wasn’t perfect.

Nothing related to the sentient condition could be.

Yoda would be the first to tell you that even he didn’t stop learning and could still be surprised.

It didn’t take long from my point of view, but it might well have been an age. An age where Yoda had battled his own Dark Side, his fear of what the Clone Wars represented for the Jedi, his fear that slowly grew with each Jedi being killed in the war. He might have been clinging to the Code in that respect, but it was there and he hadn’t been addressing it. The fear of losing the very Order he had carefully stewarded since he had attained the rank of Grandmaster.

And worst of all, that everything he had done up to now, the responsibility of what his own failure could mean and that it would all fall onto his shoulders.

“Clever, the enemy has been.”

He opened his eyes, successful in conquering himself…

“He has, though he is merely the inheritor of the grand design, the implementation of it has been mostly the work of Darth Plagueis, his late master, and himself. He is singularly adept at corruption, twisting what is good to suit his own purposes and of course, a talent for Foresight that is not hindered by the Shroud. Tell me, Master Yoda, have you realized who he is yet?”

He battled his own anger anew and let it subside. “Blind, so blind we are. That we could not see. So many meetings, sitting across from the chancellor I did. Right in front of us, he was. Powerful he is, to shield himself from me so successfully.”

“A warning you must take to heart and mind, Master Yoda. Do you want to know what I foresee if you two should fight each other?”

“Another thing, to which I’ve been blind. So obvious in hindsight it is,” he grumbled, thumping his gimer stick into the black stone floor.

“Naturally, the enemy can’t know my own position, Master. If you knew, unprepared, whilst on Coruscant-”

“Understand I do, padawan. Amazing this existence can be, that I can still, after all this time, be humbled. No, not needed, your foresight is. Defeated, I will be.”

“Yes, but defeated, as you were,” I clarified with a raised finger. “Confronting him whilst being prepared and aware, is an entirely different path. He has prepared many paths and plans. In concert with his foresight, it's his singular greatest weapon. Yet even he has biases and blind spots, ones which I’ve been carefully using against him. He wishes to recruit both Anakin and myself eventually to his new Order, for us to join him in the Dark Side. We are carefully positioning the board and maneuvering around him as much as possible. It’s not enough to just physically defeat him.”

I raised my hand and the world around us briefly changed to a probability line, which saw Dooku and Savage try to overthrow Sidious. A battle which could take place on Serenno six months from now, where the Dark Lord travelled after sensing the potential threat that the dathomirian could be. The very fact that it could happen at all represented a failure on Savage’s part and my own.

The battle that followed was something that I could sense surprised Yoda.

Sidious’ skill with the lightsaber was unquestionable, even more so his sheer command of the Force and strength in the Dark Side. How he broke his opponents down with every swing, sinuously working his way through passive Force protections. Then before you could even blink, his strength overwhelmed your Control and you went flying under telekinesis that beggared belief.

Savage’s own overwhelming strength was dismantled in this manner, and Sidious’ Force Lightning was comparatively mild. Merely enough to buy some uninterrupted time to fight Dooku.

This fight was more even, yet Sidious was still clearly in command of the fight’s pace. He would never teach his apprentice anything in the Dark Side that could truly be a threat to him. In fact, the entire confrontation would be just another pointed lesson to Dooku, reminding him of his true place.

Dooku’s bladework was simply an astounding exhibition of efficiency, his Makashi cutting apart Sidious’ offense, but just looking at it I saw that Palpatine was again humoring the older man.

“Skill in all forms, he has,” Yoda declared, carefully studying how Sidious was moving.

I nodded, “He has trained himself to defeat any Jedi combat style he might encounter. Do you also see how contemptuously he moves? He also does not ever fight with his true capability, he draws you in, thinking you can win, until-”

With a singular movement, a burst of blinding speed from Palpatine that charged directly into Dooku, as he was in one of Makashi’s phases of retreat.

The Count of Serenno was barely able to bring his blade around to redirect Sidious’s red blade, before the Dark Lord sent a mere Force Push that just did enough to unbalance his opponent.

Sidious was then totally free to send an underhanded Force Lightning blast straight into Dooku’s stomach.

Sidious laughed in contempt as Dooku went flying as a Force Push was blended right into the Lightning in a stunning display of two entirely different techniques.

I gave another gesture and dissolved the view of the probability line.

Yoda didn’t need to see more.

“Of course, there is one Jedi who could defeat Palpatine,” I looked at Yoda knowingly.

“Windu.”

“Yes, Master Windu’s Shatterpoint and that is precisely why he will not fight him, but instead arrange for Windu to suffer a tragic fate with his supreme skills of Foresight. Even if we manage to engineer a confrontation despite that, he will have a contingency of betrayal or surprise ready.”

“Hmmmm,” Yoda mused, frustration creeping over his features. “Vexing this is.”

“His physical defeat is actually just one side of the dilemma, Master.”

With a surge of will, I moved us into a memory of my time at Kamino, in Tapioca City where the great hovering tanks of developing clones hovered in the air over a vast arena, dividing into subsections where clones of differing maturities underwent their education and training. The perspective pushed in further until we were within arms reach of a young Fett clone at the rough stage of a six year old. 

“You were one of the few Jedi to naturally raise concerns about the use of the Clone Army. The first Battle of Kamino, forced your hand and in the chaos of the subsequent first month of the war, everyone didn’t want to look into the miraculously timed arrival of the army, just when the Republic was in need of it. Even when things settled into a new equilibrium, the demands of the war just didn’t allow for a closer enquiry. Anyone who kept pressing on the matter was also quickly shut down or shamed, being accused of Separatist sympathies or even being a traitor. Now almost two years later, the GAR is almost a household name. Advertised and lauded by COMPOR with almost daily propaganda.”

Yoda didn’t need me to connect the dots further. “For us to use, Sidious intended. Greater purpose perhaps? No, secret purpose.”    

“Correct. You recall Master Sifo-Dyas warning you and the council, just prior to the Naboo Invasion, that a great war was coming and that the Republic would need an army?”

The grandmaster’s face fell, his small shoulders bending under the unseen weight as the curse of hindsight struck again. “Listen to him, we should have. Too quick to dismiss, even I was.”

“And now you see another primary reason why I did not come forward with my own gift,” I gave the small master a mild glare. “Yet Sifo-Dyas was not deterred and he went in secret to the Kaminoans to commission the clone army and its equipment. He pretended to have the council’s authorization and through judicious use of his own abilities managed to scrape together enough credits to at least convince the kaminoans to begin the project. Unfortunately, he was not cautious enough to avoid the eye of the Sith. He was killed, but Sidious saw potential and eventually he sent Dooku to continue the funding and the work.”

I made a quick gesture and we were now submerged in a memory of the Dome of Clan Skirata on Mandalore. There was no context for the location that I allowed, but it showed a grizzled veteran clone, who was getting a replacement bionic leg, whilst he was being examined within a bio-scan tunnel.

Yoda would likely infer this was on Mandalore, there was no stopping that, since there were a number of Skirata in beskar’gam, armed and carefully guarding the entire operation.

My own point of view of this operation, had been via proxy holodroid, which I was also editing out.

I pushed our perspective further into a holoscreen readout of the clone’s brain and eventually the bio-chip.

“Every clone ever grown, has one of these. When given a specific order, this chip overrides much of the clone’s higher cognitive reasoning and allows them to be ordered to obey a pre-programmed directive or the order of a sufficiently superior officer. The clone will carry it out to the letter, even at the cost of their own lives. Now these chips aren’t uncommon in clones in general. Their use was even directed by Sifo-Dyas initially as insurance against the clones being given orders by fallen or rogue Jedi. He had foreseen that the pressures of war would cause many to fall and with this, he was attempting to prevent that. However, with the Sith takeover of the project, the inhibitor chip gained a new purpose.”

The memory fell away and now I pulled us into a probability line.

We were standing outside the Jedi Temple on Coruscant, it was late in the evening and an entire clone legion was storming inside, quickly overwhelming the temple guard with massed, pin point fire, a drone swarm surging forward over their heads and spraying any Jedi they could with rapid blaster fire. Leading them was a quartet of Inquisitors, their red blades cutting down any resistance that could organize itself.

“Imagine Master Yoda, that it is happening all over the galaxy at once. Imagine a Jedi in the middle of battles on the front lines, suddenly being betrayed by every clone trooper and shot in the back.”

The grandmaster had closed his eyes, his hands clenched on the head of his gimer stick, once again fighting a renewed bout with his own anger.

“Walk into a trap, I have. Foolish, I have been.”

“Master Yoda, the Sith have been studying you for centuries. I challenge anyone to do better than you have. It is not your fault that the enemy is the enemy. Yes, perhaps there were occasions when you could’ve done things differently, actually listened to Sifo-Dyas for example, but Sidious would’ve just altered his plans and contingencies. If the GAR had been truly loyal to the Republic and the Jedi, he could’ve just released the brakes on CIS war droid production and utterly drowned us in metal. You’ve seen war reports I haven’t, Master Yoda, but I can guess quite a number of them are slightly baffled at the behavior of the CIS armed forces and their war production?”

Yoda nodded, “Outbuild us, they could. More ships and droids. Logistics, shorter and easier for them, they are. So, clones, one jaw of the trap, the droids, the other. The fallen Jedi leading the charge-”

“They’re Sidious’ Inquisitors. His own Order that he’s been secretly training for close to a decade by now. They’re either fallen Jedi, indoctrinated Jedi who were taken from the Agricorps or even some younglings his own operatives have managed to find.”

The probability line faded and we were back in the Darksaber’s expanse.

“Breaking with the Banite Order, he is already, dangerous,” Yoda sighed.

“He mostly believes it has fulfilled its original purpose at this point. Now he will push his new order forward and gain what he sees as ultimate power, politically, materially, in the Force itself, and immortality as well.”

Yoda scoffed and tapped the gimer stick to the floor, “Ambitious, he is. Many Sith, tried they have. For death, most wish, in the end.”

“He knows, and believes he can learn from their failures to finally succeed, which he generally will.”

Yoda stared at me with a hint of astonishment in his eyes, “Your knowledge on this matter, Ahsoka Tano. Secrets of the Sith, that he would never let go… ”

“My expression of foresight allows me to explore paths of the future, untrod. It allows me to gain data points and hints of where to direct my efforts in the present.”

Yoda was quick to grasp the implications. “Much to discuss, we have.”

“In here, Master Yoda, we will have as long as we need. We can’t leave Ilum until you are successfully brought on board to the plan that has been developed. With a bit of prep work, I can bring in another into this space, who is the other primary mind behind its development.”

“Another?”

“Let’s just say she’s much older than even you, Master and has been looking forward to this meeting.”

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“Just how do they expect us to find a tiny crystal in endless corridors and caves of ice?”

Katooni couldn’t help but point out the obvious after their small group had been travelling forward in what felt like a confusing maze.

At first, it seemed the corridors were simply iced over extensions of the main temple, but turn a corner and they could walk straight through a natural cave tunnel, with no logical rhyme or reason. There was also an ambient light everywhere that radiated from the ice in a way that at least staved off the sheer darkness that should’ve been there - as there was no conventional lighting or even naked flame to light up the way.

Petro shrugged, “What’s the big deal? We could easily last a night in here.”   

“Actually, according to my calculations,” Zatt tapped his modified datapad, sniffing as his nautolan physiology rebelled against the icy cold, “based on the planetary rotations and orbits of this system, the sun only rises on Ilum every nineteen standard days.”

“We don’t have the supplies to last that long even if we had our packs with us. Is this a survival test as well?” Katooni asked with mild horror.

“Only if we fail to get our crystal in time, which I don’t plan on doing. That’s why I’m taking this route,” Petro jerked a thumb towards the right path in the junction they were walking through.

“Petro, sticking together in a survival situation is the best course of action,” Katooni argued.

“We’re not in a survival situation yet. No, I’m going to be the first to get my crystal and get out of here.”

Without further word, the human teen turned and walked away into the icy gloom.

“Come along, we need to keep moving.”

“Always wants to be first, always thinking of himself,” Gungi growled.

“Selfish,” Katooni agreed angrily, struggling to maintain her calm. Petro always seemed to do everything in a way that seemed designed to infuriate her. In class, he would get the top scores with seemingly no effort, whilst she studied and trained her tendrils off, just to attain equal scores or second place. His attitude was just humble enough with the teachers, but the instant he could, he would go on these self-congratulatory monologues.

The natural cave gave way to construction, becoming an elegant frozen corridor before they headed into a circular room with four doors going in different directions.

“Oh, which way now?” Ganodi groaned with frustration.

“Given the time constraint, we might have to split into small groups,” Katooni hated the notion, but at least it was better than going at it completely alone.

“What? No!” Ganodi objected. Byph shook his flat head at the mere idea, his eyes wide with a raw fear.

Zatt glared at them all, “Are we Jedi or cowards? I have an idea. On the count of three, close your eyes and point to a door. That’s the direction each of us will go in.”  

Gungi nodded and the rest of the group agreed with some reluctance.

“One… two… three!”

Hands shot out, pointing towards doors.

Zatt and Katooni, left, Ganodi and Gungi, center door, whilst Byph’s hand was the only one pointing to the right door, which was shrouded in darkness.

“No! No!” Byph blurted through his left mouth, looking in horror towards where his traitorous hand had gone.

“Sorry, Byph, looks like you’re on your own for this,” Zatt said with regret.

“No, I’ll go with Ganodi and Gungi.”

“Byph, your instincts in the Force told you to go that way. As Jedi, we have to follow that,” Katooni encouraged him.

“Who knows what could be down there! There could be animals that see me as their next meal!”

“We learned how to pacify wild animals, Byph.”

“Which I was never any good at!”

“You’re a Jedi, Byph. You can do this.”

With that final word, Katooni firmly turned around and headed in the direction she had chosen, even as her heart railed against leaving poor Byph like that. Yet as she walked beside Zatt, it felt right and it was as if the Force put a warm hand of support on her shoulder.

Byph would be fine.

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My connection to Kina Ha was obviously not as strong as Anakin’s, but it was just enough for this purpose. She was currently on Devaron, making use of the planet’s own Force Nexus, where the Jedi Temple of Eedit was located, for this exact moment. Just how she had gained access without sending up all sorts of red flags back to the Jedi Temple of Coruscant, I had no idea. I had long since given up trying to figure out the ways the ancient kaminoan Jedi could cajole and manipulate the people around her.

“Master Yoda, may I introduce you to Master Kina Ha, a Jedi of the Old Republic.” Her supremely tall form shimmered into existence next to me.

Kina’s large black eyes, star-like shards shimmering in them, smiled serenely down at Yoda yet there was a hint of mischief there…

Oh boy.

Yoda actually dropped his gimer stick, such was his shock at seeing and sensing the sheer presence of Kina. Given that we were in the kyber realm of the Darksaber, where your state of mind was reflected more acutely - Yoda had been truly blindsided. Of all his imaginings of who I could’ve been talking about, never did it enter into the realms of possibility that I could bring someone like this to meet us.

She knelt down and placed her huge four fingered hand on Yoda’s tiny shoulder.

The level of communication that passed between them was one that went beyond mere words.

It was that of two souls, spiritually in communion.

“It is good to meet you, young one,” Kina grinned. “Yet sad that your kind has still kept to its isolationist ways.”

“Hmmm, know more you would of why.”

“And I understand it, even if I disagree with it in spirit. Yet we are not here to talk about that, Yoda. The galaxy is on the cusp of great change, whether for good or ill, is yet to be determined. It is about to be caught in the greedy unyielding hold of the Sith, once again. Instead of by conquest, they have worked from within and now, a Dark Lord sits in the chancellor’s seat of the Republic. He is steadily working to consolidate every political lever of power to his sole command in the name of fighting the very war he is orchestrating from behind the scenes. It will not be long now, when he will believe that everything is ready to begin his final act of revenge against the Jedi and the greater galaxy.”

“Something to be done, there must be.”

“Of course there is. There is a narrow window of opportunity that Ahsoka and I have been steadily working towards. He has caught us in a trap and it is when his confidence and sheer eagerness for that trap’s conclusion to reach its end, that he will be the most vulnerable. For all that he is most eager to shed the trappings of the Banite Sith Order, he is still Sith and that will be his undoing.”

Yoda nodded, “Perhaps. Uncertainty, too much. Time I need.”

I could feel he was rather in awe of actually being in the presence of someone who, for once, was actually far older than he was. That she was a Jedi from a legendary and tumultuous time in history was also tickling Yoda’s inner academic and he wanted nothing more than an uninterrupted year to just sit and talk to Kina Ha.

“Understandable, young one. Don’t be too hard on yourself though.”

Yoda actually grimaced, “Steer the Order into darkness, I would have.”

“Yes, there is no use denying it, young one. I can criticize many decisions made by you and the forebears of the current Jedi Order. You’ve joined us to the hip of the Senate, now we’re in a role as Generals of an army. Something that was avoided in my time until Revan foolishly dragged us into the Mandalorian Wars. You don’t need me to revisit how that ended. Don’t even get me started on the Jedi Lords during the pre-Ruusaan era. Yet unlike then, now we’ve clearly been gifted with a warning,” Kina gestured to me. “Does that not give you hope?”

“Hmmmm,” Yoda closed his eyes. “Yes, yes it does.”

“Now, you have much to learn from me in this relatively short time we have together. When you return to Coruscant, it will be too risky for me to appear like this. The Nexus beneath the Jedi Temple is his and he would surely sense me. The role we need of you, is to continue presenting Sidious with the picture he expects, then when the time is right, you will act. Not with a lightsaber but with the most powerful weapon of all.”

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“I don’t think this is the right way,” Zatt stared into his datapad with frustration, slapping the side futilely to encourage the scanner to make more sense. 

If he was to believe its results, he was currently standing upside down, north and south had inverted positions, yet west and east stayed the same. Yet his eyes and senses told him he was normally walking down an ice encrusted tunnel that was opening up above into an expansive cave with a huge ice wall on the other side that would be a dead end.

He pointed at it, “See, we better go back.”

Katooni on the other hand kept walking, staring at something high up. “Wait. Up there, look. Something’s flashing.”

Zatt rolled his eyes and did so, only seeing an near endlessly high jagged ice wall and nothing that could be described as ‘flashing’.

“Can’t see anything.”

“It’s right there!”

“It’s probably because it's your crystal calling you, Katooni,” he said with frustration. Lucky her. “You’ll have to climb to get it.”

“But… up there? It’s just so high.”

It was an unfortunate fear that she had developed during their academy lessons in falling and how to make any fall survivable. She had struggled the most to develop the basic momentum shedding technique and while eventually successful, it had clearly left its mark on her.

He put a hand on her arm, pushing hard in his heart and confidence, “You can do this, Katooni. Remember, it’s just slightly steeper steps.”

“What- what if I get up there and there’s nothing?”

“That’s a risk you’ll have to take. Hey, you’re lucky. I haven’t even seen anything resembling a ‘crystal’ here yet. Now, good luck and get climbing.”

Zatt turned around leaving his friend and classmate, focusing his mind and thoughts on getting this spirits-cursed scanner to work.

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What was this annoying whistling sound?

Gungi cursed inside his thoughts as he ran towards the sound that echoed through the ice tunnel.

“Not so fast,” complained Ganodi, her much smaller strides forcing her to run extra fast to keep up.

“Can’t you hear that whistling?” he growled with annoyance.

They turned a corner and improbably emerged on the banks of a large lake encrusted with drifting sheets of ice. From above, pure sunlight was being reflected down onto it from a tunnel in the cave ceiling that twisted out of view.

“What whistling?”

They were forced to a stop and Gungi scanned the area, opening his senses and ears.

There across the lake a huge pillar of ice speared down from the cave roof, whilst a cluster of icy spikes rose from below and held between was a brilliant light that was whistling and calling to every part of him.

It was like the warmth of Kashyyyk, the great trees, the smell and sound of it, all rolled into one.

“There.”

“I don’t see anything, Gungi. Just a lake. You think it’s your crystal?”

“Definitely.”

He carefully stepped forward, but only frustration welled up when he saw that the ice was too thin and the floating sheets would never hold his weight.

“There’s no way you’ll make it at the moment, Gungi. You’ll freeze to death if you fall in. You need to be patient. You see how the sun is setting and moving away from the lake? It will freeze over again and should allow you to reach it, but you’ll also have little time to get the crystal and make it back before the front entrance freezes over as well.”

“So I’ll have to wait and then sprint as if a bantha is chasing me to make it back.”

“Yes, I wish you luck, but now that you’ve found your crystal, I have to get mine.”

Ganodi waved and rushed back to the tunnel.

Gungi sat down in a meditative position at the edge of the lake, feeling the frustration boil within. It was right there, so close, yet might as well have been at the bottom of a Shadowlands abyss. It was as if he was staring at his greatest weakness given form in the shape of ice and water.

Meditation was the one subject of all in the academy where he constantly struggled.

It still boggled the mind how others in his class could just sit there for hours and seemingly achieve nothing. Intellectually he knew the purpose, but his heart beat with the drums of Kashyyyk.

Now to become the Jedi he meant to be, he was faced with the challenge of waiting, when every fiber of his being wanted to jump forward, brave the icy water…

No, that was death, a trap.

With gritted teeth, he willed himself to be still and quiet, to let the Force come.

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I- I shouldn’t be out here. So stupid. So stupid. Shouldn’t have left the others.

Byph’s thoughts were a spiral of self-recrimination as he walked alone through the gloomy icy tunnel. Each step echoing harshly in his hearing. Each step betraying his presence to a potential predator who would like nothing more than to snack on an ithorian.

Ever since he had been selected to go on this excursion to Ilum, this constant fear had been riding on his back like a hungry toscwon.

They were too young to go out into a galaxy at war. Every day brought news of battles, death, betrayals and destruction. It was a galaxy that was totally anathema to the natural ithorian pacifism that defined his species. Yet, here he was expected to find his lightsaber.

The weapon of a Jedi.

A weapon that would see him potentially having to fight in the future.

Fight against droids, which was the only thing that seemed to offer some salvation to his multiple stomachs at the thought. He knew though, that there was so much more than just droids. His visits to the Archives were a constant nightmare, as he referenced all the other dangers that Jedi could be expected to defend others from. He just couldn’t help himself but imagine the worst.

He wringed his hands, pushing out his senses as far as they could go.

Sensing for potential danger.

Sensing for any hint of the Dark Side.

What was Master Yoda and Padawan Tano thinking? Sending us out here, where some horrible creature could pop out at any moment.

So absorbed was he in his own thoughts and fears, he didn’t even realize where his feet was taking him until it was too late.

In the distance, the icy tunnel seemed to stop and a light was there.

He blinked his large eyes and the light resolved into a monster!

It had eight awful eyes that radiated red malice, set above a perpetually snarling maw with mandibles and teeth!

Byph barely kept both of his mouths closed, swallowing the scream that had been about to erupt.

He blurred with a Force Speed technique to the side and hid behind the rock there, not even caring that his delivery of the ability had been the smoothest and best he had ever achieved.

The fear crept into him from every part of his being and wouldn’t let go.

He closed his eyes, gripping the top of his head and could only whimper.

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This is ridiculous.

Ganodi couldn’t believe that after all this time, effort, dedicating her entire life to being a Jedi since she could remember, that it all boiled down to finding a tiny little crystal in an icy maze that was seemingly constantly changing around her.

What was sacred about this?

Not a single crystal had revealed themselves in more than forty minutes of constantly walking and freezing her ear stalks off.

She was rodian and her species did not like the cold, a fact her body was reminding her of, despite all the warm clothing she had layered on herself. She could literally feel the natural mucus of her large eyes encrusting with ice and had to constantly blink at a much faster rate to preserve her own sight.

Are there even any crystals here?

Her frustration built to such a level…

“Really?! You have us walking around in circles finding nothing until we freeze to death!” she shouted to the Force.

It was completely irrational and she could already hear a number of the Jedi teachers in her head, remonstrating her for thinking that she could address the cosmic energy field itself in such a crude manner.

I’m never going to find it, she thought morosely.

Her next step went through the icy floor with a crunch.

Her heart raced as gravity pulled her down, the world dissolving into an icy haze as the crumbling ice became as fine as dust around her.

She could feel herself tumbling once through the air, by sheer instinct she bled off the momentum into the Force, saving herself from injury when her back met the hard ground.

Regaining her orientation, she was now sliding down a steep icy incline.

The moment her sight cleared, Ganodi had barely a second to brace her feet as the incline became a rough floor.

Despite preparation, she was unable to absorb the momentum entirely and ended up shooting forward face first to skid along the ice.

“Owwww,” she mumbled miserably into the floor covered with a fine snow.

She quickly sat up and hurriedly rubbed the feeling back into her face, dispelling the unyielding grip of the cold.

Her eyes blinked in shock as she took in her surroundings.

Crystals.

Hundreds of them… no, thousands of them, all twinkling with light and the Force from every surface of the cave she had landed in.

“Oh, great. Now what?”

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Listening to Kina Ha and Yoda speak, not just with words, but directly with concepts using the Force as a conduit just showed how much of a gulf still existed between my own knowledge and theirs.

I could mostly follow and it was only thanks to my time training under Bendu.

“Connection of three points, it is?”

“Yes, but eight with this structure,” Kina drew an octagonal shape that quickly became three dimensional, then went to fourth even as I looked, threatening to give me a headache just looking at the conventionally impossible shape. “Will allow for a resonance to dissipate the energy safely and not bleed it all over into our reality, which will instantly create a Wound and kill everyone, whilst also overcoming the binding energy of the planet.”

Yoda’s ears flinched backward in horror.

Yes, creating a rerun of Malachor V on a greater scale was bad and I shuddered at the mere thought.

I stood up from my own meditation, “Masters, I’m afraid we’re going to have to pause for a few moments. One of the adepts is approaching.”

“Very well, Ahsoka, I’ll be waiting,” Master Ha’s form faded.

I released Yoda’s hand, pulling us out of the Darksaber’s realm.

The sun had retreated enough to allow the ice to recover a quarter of the entire length of the massive entrance to the crystal caves.

I felt Yoda’s prodigious senses reach out and do a full accounting of every adept still in the caves. Thankfully, none were injured or in dire peril, the latter of which I would’ve been able to warn him about anyway.

Running back through the entrance was Petro.

He had such an air of smug satisfaction in his body language that he was the first to get his crystal, that I had the irrational urge to slap some sense and humility into him. Thankfully, that was not my job at all.

Yoda gave me a knowing look and a brief twitch of his mouth said that, while amused, he did not approve of my thought.

“Looks like I’m the first one back with my crystal.” Petro declared with pride. His partially broken voice was also not doing my montrals any favors, the shifting cadence between high squeak and low bass was annoying as hell. “That wasn’t so hard.”

I kept my body language and outward mask in perfect neutrality, though I gave him a raised eyebrow as I sensed no vergent kyber energy on his person at all.

“And the others?” Yoda asked pointedly.

“Who knows? I didn’t want to gloat since I found mine so quickly.”

Yoda gave me a side eye.

“Please, show us your crystal, Petro,” I asked expectantly.

He fiddled inside a pocket on the arm of his jacket, before holding out a curved ‘crystal’ that looked almost like a jagged tooth in the palm of his hand.

His brilliant smile quickly faded to a confused horror as the pure crystal of ice and not kyber swiftly melted in the beaming sunlight coming from above, returning to water.

“A crystal you have found, water you have brought,” Yoda chuckled as only he could.

“But- but that’s impossible, it was my crystal, I was so sure of it,” Petro stared at his empty, slightly wet hand.

“So certain were you,” Yoda walked forward and tapped his gimer stick lightly on Petro’s chest. “Go back, and closer you must look.”

“But the door is already a quarter closed, it’s a maze in there.”

“The longer you spend out here complaining, the less time you have to actually look, Petro. Hurry.”

His eyes widened in realization at what he was doing and he sprinted back through the door.

I sat down and held out my hand to Yoda.

He grabbed hold and in the blink of an eye we were back in the Darksaber realm with Kina patiently waiting.

“Now that we’ve got that out of the way,” she said with a grin to Yoda. “Let’s talk about stealth within the Force and how we can take a page out of the Sith’s book, without becoming them.” 

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The climb seemed to go on and on.

There was no logical possibility that it could be this high, yet somehow when Katooni looked down, the starting point below was barely within sight.

The fear kept trying to creep back in.

She resolutely refused to give in to it and just continued the climb - one hand and foot at a time, making sure of a stable base before pulling up, exactly as the training dictated.

Looking up was somehow worse than looking down, as it seemed that the light of her crystal wasn’t getting any closer - it was stretching itself away as if space itself was being bent.

“Focus, my focus determines my reality,” she whispered to herself.

The edge of ice under her left foot decided to crumble under her weight.

Her heart raced, gasping in a fright that shot up and down her spine as she reacted, clawing at the ice wall with her questing right hand.

A grip was found miraculously and she called on the Force to strengthen her hand as she dangled in the air.

“I can do this,” she said aloud.

A brief Pull with the Force, let her surge upward, finding new handholds and she embraced her senses to feel where her feet would find support.

In this vein she continued, and the light of her crystal came closer.

She staved off the surge of victory and eagerness that threatened, keeping her emotional center.

It was almost a surprise to reach up and feel a large flat platform of ice - the very top of the wall.

Another pull and she was rolling onto the entrance of another tunnel that branched off from this higher position.

She stood carefully, keeping her serenity and gazed at the kyber crystal, hanging from the stalactite like a fruit that was ready to be plucked, calling to every fiber of her being.

She just had to reach out and take it.

Her hand came forward, touching the crystal with the most delicate of grips.

It immediately tumbled off the stalactite, the glow fading slightly and tumbled into the palm of her hand with an eager energy.

Katooni closed her hands on it and immediately felt it.

A sense of belonging, completeness, warmth and sheer life, that echoed through every part of her mind, body and spirit.

She had done it!

Any idea of celebration was forestalled when she also felt urgency from her crystal.

“Yes, have to hurry,” she muttered, quickly putting the kyber crystal into the most sturdy and secure pocket on her belt.

A look down confirmed that there was no way she could survive a fall that far with her current skill in the momentum technique.

“The only way is forward then.”

She steeled herself and ran as fast as her feet could carry her on the precarious ice.

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Zatt adjusted the scanning calibration of his datapad for what felt like the hundredth time.

He had set it to look for any significant energy source above a certain threshold that he had calculated a kyber crystal would possess. In this respect, he was successful as the readout showed dozens of the crystals within the tunnel he was currently walking.

The problem was he couldn’t see them.

He held up the scanner, which said there was a crystal on the tunnel wall right in front him.

Nothing was there.

‘Were they invisible?’

He put his hand against the freezing cold wall, wincing as the icy numbness seeped the warmth from his hand greedily.

The crystals were seemingly intangible as well or his scanner was malfunctioning.

“Urggh, useless thing!” His anger surged, reaching a boiling point. Ever since they had gone into the caves, the multifunction device he had worked on for years and been improving every month with new iterations had given contradictory readings. This was its first true test in the field and it was failing at every turn!

The anger demanded expression and he began smashing the device against the unyielding ice wall with all his strength.

It managed to survive two hits, before the thin steel exterior casing, bent under the strain.

Another hit and the internal seals broke, wiring stretched to beyond rated limits and finally the battery spilled out.

In disgust he chucked the remains to the floor where it sparked pathetically and the small readout screen faded.

A slight crack in the ice wall was the only impression that his anger had done anything and Zatt felt a hopeless despair fall on his shoulders that was so powerful he couldn’t even stand anymore. He fell onto his butt, leaning with his back against the ice, not caring about the warmth that was now being leached away.

He stared at the pitiful remains of the scanner. How much time had he wasted by foolishly relying on it? He couldn’t even tell time anymore because he had integrated his chrono into the datapad.

No, I have to rely on myself.

Technology had always called to him on an intellectual level and as a youngling he had always struggled the most in using the Force for sensing beyond what mere eyes, ears and touch could give. As compensation, he had thrown himself into the sciences and even when he had caught up to his peers in Force senses, he still preferred the surety and reliability of machines.

Unlearn what you have learned, he heard Yoda’s voice.

Zatt opened himself to the Force and let go.

Astonishment hit him like a turbolaser blast. He felt it. The life, the warmth, the strength, calling out to him from just behind his back!

He jumped to his feet and whirled around, only to see a visible glow from beyond the ice wall, illuminating the fact that it was barely a few centimeters thick.

He didn’t think, he didn’t debate or reason… he acted.

The Force Push shot from his hand and shattered the ice easily.

Beyond was a small nook and inside, cradled and waiting for this exact moment, an actual kyber crystal that he could feel practically was singing for joy within the Force!

He quickly grabbed it and it came eagerly.

“Yes!”

Zatt took only a moment to savor the accomplishment before he began running, stretching out with his senses to find the way.

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Byph felt the teeth in both his mouths chatter as he hesitantly stepped towards the terrifying creature.

Each step elicited a new growl of warning - Do not come closer.

He ignored the fear - his crystal was within the maw of this beast, he would get it. He was a Jedi, he was not ruled by his fear.

The beast’s eyes grew brighter with red intensity, yet its maw remained open.

The fear was palpable now in the air, pressing down on him from all sides.

No, I will not give in to you.

Step by cautious step he came closer, each one a tiny victory as the beast wasn’t moving, rooted to its spot as if somehow chained.

Finally, Byph was in arm’s reach. If the beast wanted, it could lurch forward and swallow him with a single bite, yet it only remained still, threatening, pushing the fear onto his spirit.

It took everything he had to reach out with his left hand, the beast could now just bite and sever his arm off instantly, yet it did nothing.

In a flash of courage, Byph’s hand blurred forward and grabbed his kyber crystal from the beast’s tongue.

The light faded, his mouths could only chitter with cold and astonishment as the beast vanished, to be replaced with a crystalline ice formation that merely looked like the beast.

Byph looked down into his palm at the tiny crystal, resonating with triumph and eagerness. It was proud of him? For having conquered his own fear.

I have to go, time is running out.

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“Enough, this must be.”

“Are you sure, young one?” Kina Ha asked.

“Communicate, we will, through Ahsoka and my holocron, when Coruscant, she leaves.”

She merely nodded and turned to me. “You’ve done well to walk the path of the Matukai, Ahsoka. It’s by far the hardest path any Jedi can elect to take, even in my time it was rare for us.”

“I hardly feel like I’ve gotten anywhere at all with it,” I said ruefully.

“That is its nature. Mastery is merely a threshold and perfection will always be a horizon in the distance. Now I have some training of my own for you to work on, but that will have to wait until you’re away from Coruscant again.”

“Yes, first of the successful adepts, approaching they are.”

“See you soon, Master Ha,” I bowed.

I pulled us away from the connection and our conventional senses reported we were back within the Ilum Temple’s main rotunda.

The ice door was now almost three meters from the floor and steadily creeping closed, centimeter by centimeter.

The first to appear was Ganodi.

The young rodian, completely out of breath, stopped at the base of the stairs, leaning on her knees. “I’ve got it!” she declared once she had some of her wind back, holding up the tiny kyber crystal.

“Well done,” I smiled at her.

Following her by mere minutes was Zatt. “Padawan, I found this without my scanner! It’s amazing! The kyber crystal is alive.”

I patted the young nautolan on the shoulder, “Yes it is and it will grow with you. Most don’t recognize that fact until much later, excellent perceptions you have there.”

He beamed under the praise as Byph came running in, holding up his own crystal up in the air, rapidly babbling in Ithorese such that it was almost impossible to translate. His emotions did the talking, however.

“There is no such wonderful moment as when you truly find your courage, Byph. I want you to remember these words and this goes for all of you." I recited the Litany Against Fear, amending the final line with, "Only I in the Force will remain."

The adepts were spellbound by the words and I sensed even Yoda was briefly stunned by the litany.

“I did it!” came the growl of Shyriiwook.

Gungi ducked under the advancing ice barrier and held up the crystal that looked comically tiny in his large hairy hands.

“Well done, Gungi. Two of your classmates, however, have yet to appear.”

“That’s not good,” he said with worry, staring at the creeping ice.

“We should help them,” Ganodi said with determination, walking forward without fear, only to encounter Yoda’s unyielding gimer stick poking into her chest.

“Left the cave you have, help them, you will not. Fight the battles of others, you must not. Robbing them, you will, of growth and strength.”

“How would you feel if I had pointed out your crystals to you Ganodi, Zatt? Or carried it to you, Gungi, Byph?” I asked the four adepts.

The realization was immediately apparent in their eyes and Yoda gave me a grumpy look for slightly simplifying the lesson he was trying to teach.

My senses stretched outward and it was quite easy to find Petro and Katooni. The former had been running in circles, just fifty odd meters away whilst the latter was now stuck behind a thick sheet of ice. Her relatively meager Force Push had been unsuccessful in budging it at all.

“Petro! Petro!”

He heard her and rushed towards the transparent ice sheet. “Katooni? Is that you?”

“Petro! I’m trapped, can you help me get out?!”

“I can’t, I- I- still haven’t found my crystal,” he admitted, his face showing his internal conflict - the selfish desire for his crystal battling against a clear friend in need, who would also not escape the cave without his help.

“Petro! You can’t leave me,” she said with indignation.

“I- I have to go.”

“Petro, no!”

The young man didn’t listen and started running away, desperation filling his every sprinting stride, even as his heart punished him ruthlessly. Making him hate himself, but he needed to get his crystal! If he didn’t get it, after years and years of effort, if he failed at this moment after being so successful for so long, what was it all for?

Was sacrificing a friend to die a worthy exchange for becoming a Jedi? What would the others think of you?

Petro skidded to a dead stop as that thought pushed into the forefront of his mind. I noted with amusement that his subconscious had used my own voice.

The answer was simple and instantly made his path so clear, it was almost painful in his mind.

He turned around and sprinted back with a burst of Force Speed.

“Katooni!”

The young tholothian surged to her feet, rising from her misery at being left. “Petro?!”

“Listen, there’s no time. Put your hand on the ice. Together we can break it. I know it.”

There was no time for doubt and without pause they slammed their palms on the thick mass, submerging themselves into the Force and PUSHING.

The ice, unable to flex or disperse the supernatural kinetic energies, cracked under the combined strain and finally shattered into countless pieces, becoming no more than jagged remnants and pulverized flakes.

He held out a hand, pulling her out. Her smile was brilliant and her heart swelling with warmth and pride in her friend. “I knew you’d come back. Now come on, the door is about to close.”

“You go ahead,” he shook his head, his eyes seeing and sensing the kyber crystal that had fallen amongst the ice shards.

“But it’s too late!”

“Just go, Katooni, trust me.”

She grit her teeth and nodded, calling on the Force for swift strides.

She found the exit swiftly and jumped into a rather impressive tactical slide to make it beneath the door, which had just two feet to go before it would seal off completely.

“I have my crystal but Petro is still inside.”

The ice door completed itself as she spoke, the last vestiges of sunlight disappearing from the giant crystal above.

“Give up on your friend, do not,” Yoda advised.

The ice door thickened, becoming completely opaque. The adepts watched with dread and baited breath.

I inwardly grinned as I sensed Petro gathering the Force, what must have been the most he’d ever channeled at once.

He burst into Force Speed, charging straight for the unyielding thick ice and at the right moment, unleashed everything he had into a Force Push with as narrow an area as possible.

Ice exploded outward as his body blurred through the pulverized cloud of ice like a cannonball.

He ended up losing his footing, tumbling forward into a roll and finally stopped, raising his hand with an actual kyber crystal in it this time.

The adepts cheered and Gungi thumped his big chest in victory for his friend.

“Wait,” Ganodi said with confusion, “how did he break the ice? I thought…”

“Only water, made solid, was the door. Easy to break, if you have the will,” Yoda explained with a mischievous air.

“But… you said we would be trapped,” Katooni said with a mild sense of betrayal.

“Not by the cave, you were,” Yoda smiled. “But by your mind, you were. Lessons you all have learned. Find courage you have,” he stared at Byph. “Hope, patience, trust, confidence and selflessness.”

Each adept could only nod as their experience in the caves solidified and would become something that would be an anchor for the rest of their lives. The realization of why this place was so sacred to the Jedi, taking hold.

“Take your crystals with you to the Crucible. Listen carefully to Professor Huyang, you will. Soon the next step on the path of Jedi, you will make.”

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A/N: And so it begins... Yoda is in Fulcrum at last. The adepts have their crystals and Ahsoka will be teaching them further.

Enjoy the weekend and stay awesome folks!