A/N: Three years after it began, here it is again, revised and continuing.

Eternal Balance, Revisited.

Prologue

Two Millennia Ago…

The Alderaan sky was set ablaze by its sun, mixing pink and orange hues amongst the thin clouds. The small starfighter shone brightly against the setting orb as two women rapidly approached it, one after the other.

"Please, Master Tryvold!" the small blonde girl called out, running faster and faster after the caped figure several paces ahead. Her shrieks and foots falls went unnoticed, which she realized as slowed to a halt. "Please…don't do this."

Jedi Master Lanna Tryvold paused her quickened strides, willing herself not to glance back at her former padawan. She drew a long breath in, pursing her lips together and letting a single tear escape from her eye. "Sunda, I'm sorry…but it must be done."

"But…Docugan…it's dangerous! Terribly unstable!" Sunda shouted, her voice cracking. "You…you might die!"

"And what is a war without casualties?" She kept her stare cold to match her tone, disregarding the agony the ripping through every inch of her body.

Sunda's eyebrows furrowed. "What war? There is no-"

"If you do not feel the war all around you, young one, I have failed as your Master," Lanna said just loud enough for the other Jedi to hear. Her head managed to turn back only for a moment to meet the girl's stare. "Do not live in naivety. That is your last lesson, my apprentice."

As the Master continued to walk, Sunda's voice had finally escaped the clutches of her throat. "What do I tell the Council?"

"Tell them a great battle is about to take place," Lanna replied in a shout as she boarded the lone craft.

Sunda watched solemnly as the starfighter rose in the atmosphere and raced through the clouds.

"A great battle, my lord?" the cowardly voice replied. Droids clanked through the halls around the two men as the machines relayed their constant blather of useless information in their icy, robotic tones.

Sith Lord Darth Caedus grinned wickedly at his rather spineless apprentice. His eyes flickered from under his hood as they burned holes through the other man's. Caedus shoved a small paper into his appretice's hand. "Yes, one to end all others you might say."

Caedus spun around and stalked quietly down the corridor away from his young ward, chuckling lowly. "And what a glorious battle it will be…"

Lanna remained silent as her body sunk into the cushioned pilot seat. The landing on Docugan had been nothing short of rocky, causing her already churning stomach to do somersaults. She stared out at the landscape, littered with scraps of ancient ships that were partially blanketed in dirt and stones. Little light reached the planet, making it not much more than an icy rock floating through the Outer Rim.

The core of the planet trembled, roughly shaking the starship and causing Lanna to grip tightly to her seat. Her eyes squeezed shut and her jaw clenched as she waited out the quake, the seconds disappearing slowly one after the other.

And then there was nothing. Not a sound penetrated her ears, not even tumbling rocks. Her eyelids opened slowly, being met with a small starship, not gleaming like her own, but caked with mud and whatever else it must've ran into before. She swallowed hard, throat dry as a dark, cloaked figure stepped out of the old ship and something silver shined at his side in the dim light. She stood, reaching for her lightsaber at her hip. She gripped it tightly as the hatch opened and the unusually warm wind swept in a foul stench. Her face contorted in disgust, as she willed herself not to gag. She knew that smell better than most; it made her cringe every time. Rotting corpses.

No longer breathing out of her nose, she exited the craft and took a few unsteady steps on the planet's surface, hearing the squish of melted soil beneath her feet. Heat emanated from the muddy water, reaching through her boots and to her feet. It was unnervingly quiet as she faced him and his cloak fell to the ground. The tiny gleam she had seen before in his hand had release that menacing red light as his sickly yellow eyes burned into her. Keeping her stare hard as stone, she took two more steps. He copied her actions, taking away more distance between them. Lanna, holding her weapon tightly, pressed the switch by her thumb as blue light emitted from it.

Two more steps. Two more steps.

Two. Two.

One.

The distance had nearly closed between them as their matching glares battled each other. Caedus tilted his head to the side slightly. "No tricks? No traps?"

"I could ask you the same," she said in a low voice. His stare didn't falter. "Of course not. This is only between you and I."

"My thoughts exactly."

The planet trembled again.

1000 years later…

"Master Norik," the elderly woman bowed to the relatively young man with a pleasant smile. "I am sorry to disturb you but there seems to be an impromptu Council meeting to begin soon."

The Master's eyebrows furrowed, but he nodded in gratitude nonetheless. "Thank you for informing me."

They both began down the halls of the Coruscant Jedi Temple, chatting quietly as to not disturb the surrounding Jedi. The doors before them slid open to reveal the rest of the council, many wearing perturbed expressions. At the center of the semi-circle of chairs sat Jedi Master Skyann Talms as he ran his pale hand through his graying hair. Each master took a seat, feeling the thick tension in the room.

Master Talms sighed loudly, glancing at each face around him. "I apologize for the short notice of this meeting, but its urgency must not be overlooked. You see, on my way back from the Outer Rim, my starship had stopped moving several parsecs from any planet. The ship ran fine but a mysterious energy surrounded it. The Force was evident in its very being…" Blinking a few times, he continued. "It seemed to speak, although it was no known language in this system. It disappeared just as quickly as it came and I feel that it is important us. But its origin was a complete mystery…until I spoke to Master Faloinne."

The Masters turned to the elderly woman from before. Her smile had faded completely. "Nearly one millennium ago, a Jedi had confiscated a prophecy from a Sith. That prophecy was from a planet known as Docugan."

"Docugan?" Master Norik queried aloud. "Wasn't it destroyed in the great Jedi-Sith battle?"

Master Faloinne nodded. "Yes. Also, the coordinates of Master Talms's ship during his experience were precisely where the planet had once been."

"According to this prophecy," said Master Talms, "the energy was that of a balance between the light and dark side. It is important to the future of our galaxy."

The tension of the room grew as the sliding doors opened once more. All attention averted to the doors and the reason they had opened. A thin, pale girl entered the council chambers in bare feet wearing what could possibly be mistaken for a burlap sack. Her raven hair was matted and dirty, sticking up every which way. She stopped in the center of the room, her stone gray eyes studying each face. Master Norik stood to approach the intruder but was pulled back immediately by Skyann had already stood. The woman's eyes glistened almost unnaturally as her lips curled into what could barely be considered a smile.

"Foolish," she said aloud, her voice bouncing off the walls.

Master Talms took a step forward examining the petite woman. He stopped several feet away, feeling an air of authority surround the girl. "Excuse me...who are you?"

She raised an arched eyebrow and tilted her head as a curious bird would. "Very foolish, indeed."

Master Talms opened his mouth to speak again but she had interrupted him. "You seek a name? I am not named, mortal."

"Then," Talms started, staring at the woman, "what?"

She started walking again, her movements making her seem like she was almost gliding across the floor as she began to pace. "You have so many questions...who, what, how. Then you must be them." She stopped in front of Maser Norik whose glare had faltered. She smiled fully this time and continued pacing. "Of course you are."

The air had seemed to grow so thick; not one Master in the room could move. Each shifted uncomfortably as the woman spoke again. "Jedi, keepers of peace...quite a title..." Off the odd stares each Jedi sent her she again paused her pacing. "I am The Force, immortal, made flesh and blood now that I have been discovered. My existence, on the other hand, is what you perceive, so then I ask...what do you think I am?"

Once meeting with the Jedi Council and passing a series of tests, all the Masters agreed her proficiency in the Force exceeded even them, but also agreed she could never be a Jedi. The council recognized that half of her was the blackened soul of a great Sith Lord, which proved the young woman to be too volatile to be completely trusted. Though, after this rejection, they still gave her a background and a name: Akaia. She was known from then on throughout the galaxy.

For centuries, she was respected and looked up to by all Jedi, but still never became one herself. At first glance, some saw her as naïve and much too young. But when she spoke, she did so regally that she sometimes seemed like royalty, although she kept a humble – even peasant-like – appearance. She was their guardian for eight hundred years, watching as younglings grew and died as Jedi Knights and Masters and saw some get weighed down by the darkness inside them and join the Sith. She watched them bury their emotions inside them until rage consumed them.

How could the Jedi control this darkness that clearly controlled them by making them run from it? Could they see that? Seeing such ignorance in all of them, after those eight centuries, she disappeared. She was presumed dead to 'simplify' the situation. Sadness consumed all temples on many planets, mourning the loss of their guardian. Yet one Jedi Master knew their guardian, his friend, was alive. Only he held the ancient Docugan prophecy and a simple note in his green, three-fingered hand…

She shall bear hope to all before her.

For she is the Force itself

And shall bring peace to those who believe.

From her life, balance will be restored.

From her ashes, salvation will come.

The destiny of one shall be taken

And the destinies of all shall be altered.

In the face of great loss,

Fate will take us once more.

It has begun.

-Akaia


Two Centuries Later…

Nineteen-year-old padawan Anakin Skywalker lay in his bed, tossing to each side quite uncomfortably. His mind prayed for sleep to engulf him as it did every night, but his heart did not think he could suffer another dream of his mother. He could not bear to see her tormented again. Perhaps I'll dream of Padme again... he wondered, his heart lifting as it often did at the mere mention of the woman he longed to see for the past ten years. He wondered if she changed at all…if she even remembered him. Probably not, he thought miserably. He sighed and closed his eyes, as sleep took him.

((His mind was complete darkness, but a presence could be felt through the endless sea of black. A voice pleaded, just above a whisper, please…help me.

Every limb on him was pierced with agony. A deafening scream split through the still air. Images of millions dead flashed at a pace he could barely keep up with. Blood and burns coated the bodies.

A young woman whose features he could barely see looked him in eyes, her expression saying, 'I'm sorry.'

Face the darkness, learn from it. Do not become it.

A blue lightsaber clashed with a red one as a deep scathing voice laughed malevolently and another screamed in pain.))

He bolted up in bed, his lungs on fire as the sucked in massive amounts of air. He glanced around the room, noticing nothing particularly out of the ordinary. Finally calm once more, he laid back down, again unable to sleep.

The man's eyes were wide open staring at her.

Fear was still set in those eyes even though they were now emptied of all life. Her breathing quickened as panic tightened her chest and her fingers twitched violently, the unfamiliar feeling of electricity jolting through them. Her knees weakened as she crumpled to the grass. Smoke still rose from the man's body as he laid there, skin badly scalded and mouth hung open. His piercing scream still rung in her ears although the only sound she could hear now was the thudding of footsteps in the distance, growing closer by the second.

"I...I didn't mean..."

Two middle aged men ran into view, abruptly stopping and gawking at the scene. Their shaking fingers pointed directly at her as both men started hyperventilating.

Her breathing quickened as she shook her head. "Please! I didn't...I didn't mean to-"

"SITH!'"

TBC

A/N: Revised Prologue thingy! Yayness!