Masalis awoke the next morning and met Stila and Al-Kaz at the front of the arena. "Time to Go?" Masalis asked, a sack over his shoulder that contained his clothes, he had his lightknife on his belt and had obtained his championship resignation fund that amounted to half a million credits.
"Yes." Al-Kaz said, walking towards the ship he and Stila had arrived on. "If all goes well, we should be in Coruscant in about 5 hours." Masalis was fit to burst with excitement, even though it still wasn't one hundred percent positive since his force sensitivity hadn't been tested yet. Masalis climbed aboard the sleek carrier ship that Stila and Al-Kaz had used to get to Tatooine. As they took off, speeding towards Coruscant, nobody saw the smaller black ship pursue them. It was smooth riding for about two hours, Al-Kaz was one of the best pilots in the entire Jedi order after all, but then the ship tipped wildly to the left, throwing Masalis and Stila out of their seats. "Al-Kaz!" Stila shouted in a worried way, "Is something wrong?"
"We're being pursued by a enemy ship and we only have shields. Strap yourselves in, I'm going to make a crash landing into the Coursen system."
"But that planet's just a giant generator!" Masalis said as he righted himself and strapped in."
"This ship won't make it any further than Coursen!" Al-Kaz replied, jerks and spins accompanying his words. Masalis's stomach lurched with every spin the ship made. Masalis had never liked flying for this exact reason: his stomach wasn't well equipped to deal with the highly evasive maneuvers used in ships. Fortunately however, the steel grey sight of Coursen showed up quite early. With a simple jerk and a slamming of the brakes, the ship had landed with a screech of metal on Coursen. The two Jedi and one hopeful leaped out of the ship to see their pursuer ride away. Stila made a annoyed sound as Al-Kaz turned to the door into the generator. "Stila. We have bigger problems than our ship's state." A masked figure in a black cloak approached them, drawing and igniting a red lightsaber as the male figure approached. Al-Katz and Stila acted Instantly as they recognized their great enemy: a dreaded Sith Lord. Stila opened the door behind them that led further into the generator, Masalis running behind the nearby ship. He watched the two fight the single sith, Al-Kaz's purple lightsaber and Stila's blue, flashing against the fearsome red lightsaber of the Sith. As the door started to close, Masalis ran into the generator after the three just as the door shut behind him. Masalis kept his distance as they fought, knowing that the only weapon he had, his lightknife, had neither the reach nor the power to contest with a full fledged lightsaber. The sith was extremely good, since he was winning against two Jedi. After a few minutes, the sith thrust a hand toward Stila, sending her flying off the edge. Al-Kaz hesitated for a moment too long, as the sith slashed Al-Kaz into two halves, kicking the upper half on the other side of the thin bridge they had been fighting on. Masalis gave a furious cry as he ran, his lightknife ignited. The sith turned, blocking Masalis's furiously reckless strike. Masalis used his momentum to leap over the sith's head and grab Al-Kaz's lightsaber, putting away the knife in a right pocket of his belt and igniting the purple lightsaber. Masalis has never fought with a lightsaber before, but it didn't feel as off as it would have if he hadn't practiced fighting with the lightknife. What followed after Masalis attacked the sith with Al-Kaz's lightsaber can only be described as a beautiful battle. Masalis and the sith battled back and forth, stray strikes cutting into the cylindrical pillars of energy around them. Masalis fought like a demon, fury and adrenaline lending him speed and power against a foe who normally would have killed him in the first minute. Minutes passed as these two fighters battled for their lives on a thin bridge rapidly becoming unstable due to the energy leaking from the tubes. Masalis slashed furiously at the sith, who parried it, but unlike all the other times, the purple blade of light exploded, the hilt sparking and fizzing. The sith laughed and sheathed his lightsaber and extended his hand towards Masalis, who had been blown backward by the explosion. Lighting arced from the sith's hand blasting at Masalis. His new current of electricity attracted the leaking energy from the pillars, creating a white hot cascade of lighting and energy bearing down on Masalis. Masalis glared defiantly at the masked sith and got up to his knees, and then stood. He lunged toward the sith, grappling for the lightsaber on the sith's left hip. Masalis's left hand reached for his lightknife, and as soon as he had a grip on it, he plunged it's blazing blue blade into the sith's shoulder. The sith, distracted by the lightknife in his shoulder, lost the fight for the lightsaber and blasted lightning at Masalis, who now had ignited the red lightsaber and was attacking him. Masalis brought the lightsaber in a deadly arc over the sith's head, slicing through the mask and cutting into the sith's chest. The sith fell back, blood spilling through the thin slits in the bridge. The face Masalis saw broke his battle fury and brought him back to reality with a thud. It was Markilo's face. It looked different, age had turned more of his hairs grey, but there was no doubt it was Markilo Shaw, first master to Stila and Masalis's future teacher. Masalis kicked Markilo's dead body over the left side to join Al-Kaz, hiding the red lightsaber in his belt as he collapsed with exhaustion and pain.
-meanwhile a few hundred feet down-
Stila had grabbed hold of a ledge and swung herself up and was hurrying upwards following the complex maze of corridors and elevators to the floor where Masalis was collapsed, unable to move, but still conscious."Stila. Al-Kaz. The Sith. They both fell. I… I couldn't." Was all Stila allowed Masalis to say
"We need to get you to Coruscant and tell the council of this." Stila said picking up and half carrying half dragging Masalis to the sith craft on the other side of the the landing dock.
Stila flew the ship back to Coruscant and landed it rather lopsidedly. She dragged Masalis out and took him toward the medical dock, he had burns all over, but fortunately they would heal. Stila walked to the council and told them of the sith encounter and of Al-Kaz's untimely demise. "This young man," one of the Jedi said, "to honor Markilo's wish and since he has fought against the sith, we bestow upon him the title of Jedi Knight and," the Jedi looked into Stila's eyes as he said, "you will teach him." Stila nodded and was about to reply when one Jedi Master, concerned with healing, was alerted that Masalis had been cared for and was being sent to the council room. From the bottoms of his feet to the top of his head, he was encased in metal. His feet were diamond shaped with the toes being flat and not ending in a point. His legs were perfect and streamlined, made for speed and endurance. A hexagonal plate rested where his kneecaps would have been, separating his lower legs and upper legs. The upper legs were slightly less streamlined than the lower legs, but gave off a daunting feeling of power. From the waist up overlapping black metal plates covered him like the scales of a dragon, impenetrable and unstoppable. The shoulders were elegantly made, the joints protected by the same black plates as his chest, three odd cylindrical protuberances extending from the shoulders. The arms were magnificent in a horrifyingly inhuman way. The arms looked exactly like his arms had looked, but there was no natural flow. From the elbow up, his arms were crimson and rectangular in shape, a circular piece connecting to the forearm. The forearms were slightly thinner, but equal in length and painted a shocking black. The hands followed the rectangular pattern, the fingers rounded like his normal fingers. Small diamond shaped connectors replaced the knuckles and similar bones on a normal hand giving his hands a sharp, predatory look. His back was supple and sleek, his midnight black artificial spine hidden beneath the same scale like overlapping plates on the front, but these were crimson. His throat was protected by flexible black metal. His head was covered in a mask. It was smooth and black, a grey line at eye level and a raw red x crisscrossing the entire mask going between the eyes. The mask slowly became gradually smaller as it reached his chin, where it became flat instead of becoming a point. In the grey strip where his eyes would be there were two black orbs, dreadfully calm, and were how he saw. The mask covered all of his head, except for his hair which had turned an unnatural shade of white. "Masalis. We have chosen you to be a Jedi Knight. Stila will be your guide and instructor." The Jedi Master said, leaning back in his chair. Masalis nodded and followed Stila out of the council room to begin learning the arts of a Jedi.