A/N: Wow, two updates in one day. Please do not get used to this.
With four masters and a padawan pressed in around a cluttered desk and stacks of flimsy and datapads, there was very little legroom in the Chief Healer's small office and, at that moment, even less conversation.
"But, obviously he's delusional," the Padawan cracked first. Most Jedi his age would've been too intimidated by the revered company to speak up at all, let alone first, but the circumstances demanded his attentions in particular.
"I am not saying he isn't, Padawan Kenobi," Vokara Che said pointedly. "But he remains firmly convicted in his delusions. And I'm afraid to say that his assumption of your identity is the lesser of two. He's also completely convinced that he's dead."
Qui-Gon couldn't help it when his eyebrows twitched toward his hairline.
"He said this himself?" Mace Windu asked from Qui-Gon's left.
"Yes, after he told me that I was dead," Vokara deadpanned, leaning forward in her chair to lean elbows on a clear spot of desk. "He seemed more alarmed at being here than he was about being dead." The only other chair in the room was occupied by Master Yoda, who's creviced face tightened in thought. "Hmm," this quiet syllable was enough to bring four pairs of eyes waiting on the aged master's opinion. "Awake, he is?"
"Not at present. He woke up when my apprentice attempted to administer an IV line," Vokara said with a tone of protective bitterness. "He blew six fuses, made a mess of his room, broke a life support unit – not in use, thank the Force – and shattered a dozen lights."
Master Yoda hummed again, a more serious note. "Force sensitive, he is."
"Very," was Che's chagrinned reply.
"And you say he was found after the… disturbance this afternoon?" Mace rubbed his chin thoughtfully.
"Right after. A temple corps. member, Tala Vleka, sensed his presence while on duty in the lower levels. She found him ailing under slabs of the demolished floor. The engineers tell us the building is stable, but apparently his arrival caused quite a bit of damage."
"Which floor?" Master Windu wanted to know.
"B-459," Vokara said. Obi-Wan's eyes widened quietly, and he shot a look to his Master. He had no idea the temple had so many levels. Qui-Gon hid his own surprise and stifled his pupil's curiosity with a glance. Occupied with this exchange, neither of them noticed the tense look shared by the Master of the Order and the Grandmaster.
"A vast level, it is. Know the location of his discovery, do you?" Yoda asked in a low, gravelly tone.
Master Che set a datapad in the center of her desk and pulled up a holomap so that all could see. She magnified the display of the lower temple, scanning the floor in question while consulting her notes. "Here," She pointed to a spot in the very center of the level.
Yoda and Windu both went stiff, and a bolt of alarm shot through Obi-Wan nerves. Both councilors' shields made them inscrutable, but their reactions spoke for them. Master Che did her best to ignore it as she added, "This sector hasn't been on the power grid for centuries, so it was too dark for Vleka to describe the state of the room. The droids can only tell us that no significant structural damage was done."
"Investigate, we will," Yoda decided. "First, see the patient myself, I will."
"Of course, master," Vokara flicked off the map. She caught Qui-Gon's eye and flicked her gaze meaningfully at Obi-Wan. The master tipped his chin up in understanding.
"My apprentice will go to the lower levels to investigate," He said. Mace cocked an eyebrow at the unapproved decision and Obi-Wan looked surprised.
"Master?" he murmured in an aside. Qui-Gon shook his head. Not now.
"I will accompany Padawan Kenobi," Mace decided, and shared a brief look with the boy. "Where is Miss Vleka now?" He asked Vokara.
"I haven't seen her for over an hour. She was speaking with a transcription droid just outside the Halls."
"Questioned she has been, working she will be. Consult her transcriptions later, we will." Yoda slid from his chair and leaned on his gimmer stick, claws arched in calculated thought. "Go now you must, before cold the trail becomes."
"As you say, Master," Mace bowed and Obi-Wan followed suit with a deeper learner's bow. The Korun master led the way out, with Obi-Wan casting a last glance at his master before following two paces behind. Qui-Gon closed the door.
"Troubled, your thoughts are, Master Vokara," Yoda turned to the healer once the three were alone.
"Yes," She said, a deep frown now giving voice to the depth of her concern. "This… man. He…" She looked between the two masters uncertainly. "It is impossible, what he suggests. And yet…" her reason struggled to articulate what her feelings suggested.
Yoda hummed and tapped his cane on the ground, drawing Vokara out of her thoughts. "Bring us to him, you will," the diminutive master said, striding toward the door. "See this Disturbance myself, I will."
With this pronouncement, the small council adjourned. The Chief Healer escorted the two masters past a darkened room where custodial droids swept up shattered glass to a more sequestered quarter. Inside the only occupied room within sight lie the Disturbance himself, pale skin mottled pink in the clinical lighting.
Qui-Gon paused at the door, a jarring sensation settling in his gut. He recovered and stepped forward, training his expression into a neutral stare. The man was… not what he was expecting. Elusive, Vokara had called it. Elusive was not the first word that occurred to him. Uncanny, perhaps. Unsettling. He stepped toward the bed and looked at the man's face, neck growing involuntarily tense. Familiar.
While Vokara found a chair for Yoda to stand on, Qui-Gon's eyes roved in disturbed silence. Ginger hair, overgrown and untidy. A thick beard, obscuring a downturned mouth and soft jawline. The thickness of his hair and the tone of his skin suggested relative youth, but the deep lines under his eyes and on his brow bespoke either age or intense hardship. It was the birthmark by his left eye that sent a chill down Qui-Gon's spine.
This was not baseless delusion. This was deliberate, calculated, and convincing. And it was a falsehood – it had to be.
"Disturbing indeed, this is," Yoda hummed, gimlet eyes flashing over the man's body and the soft restraints that bound his wrists and ankles to the bedframe. "Match young Kenobi, his DNA does," it was a statement.
Vokara couldn't bring herself to actually confirm such illogic, so she sighed and said, "My equipment has never malfunctioned so grievously or persistently, Master."
"Fail, your machines do not," Yoda told her, gazing into the imposter's face. "Fail the Force does not. Misunderstand, we must not." He waved Qui-Gon over and the tall man helped the Grand Master down from the chair. "Meditate on this, I will, hmm, yes." He looked up at his young companions. "Disturbed the Force is. To say why, how… I cannot. Proceed carefully we must."
"But Master Yoda," Qui-Gon had his hands clasped in a polite stance, but his expression was twisted in a stern foil to Yoda's air of destinism. "Surely there is a ready explanation. The Halls themselves possess means to transform a person's likeness to appear as those of another. This is surely a variant on such technology."
"Explain the Disturbance in the Force, technology does not," Yoda said, clacking his gimmer stick on the ground. "Explain his DNA it does not. Explain his arrival, explain the damage done to this Temple, it does not." The small master entoned with nine centuries of authority, "Blindly rebel against the Force, your senses do, as often as rebel against me you do, Padawan Jinn."
There was no possible response to that, so Qui-Gon looked away with a suitably contrite expression. Distantly, he was grateful that Obi-Wan was not here to see such a display.
Yoda sighed and glanced at Vokara, whose face was impassive. "Heed the Force's prompting, we must. Meditate I will. Go to the archives you will, Qui-Gon, consult the Order's wisdom on technologies." He glanced at the slumbering patient before moving toward the door. "Inform me when he wakes. Speak with him, I must."
"Yes, Master." Vokara gave a curt bow.
As Qui-Gon walked out with Master Yoda, their tense exchange of moments before melted into the Force. "Right, I hope you are," Yoda confided quietly. Qui-Gon looked down in surprise. Yoda glanced up to meet his gaze. "If more than technology and delusion, this man is… clouded, our path will be."
Obi-Wan had never been in a turbolift for so long in his life. Granted, it had not been a single lift. It was actually a series of three turbolifts, each one subsequently older and slower than the one preceding, that provided access to the Temple's buried expanses. Until about thirty standard minutes ago, Obi-Wan hadn't been aware the Temple had four hundred and fifty-nine (or more?) basement levels. Now, seeing the trouble one had to go to in order to reach them, he understood why he'd never heard tell of their destination. Still… the mystery of it, its connection with the recent disturbance, it made the thought irresistible: what in the bleeding nine hells was down here?
"This floor was retrofitted to house mechanical utilities over a century ago," Mace Windu explained, breaking the tense silence that had fallen between them. Obi-Wan glanced up and blushed when he realized he hadn't been shielding well. If Master Windu found the slip amusing, he didn't let it show. "The rooms on this floor are very tall and very wide – perfect for housing repulsor units, regulators, the like."
Obi-Wan nodded, absorbing. His brow wrinkled pensively. "And… what were the rooms originally built for, Master?"
Mace side-eyed him. It was no wonder Qui-Gon liked the boy; he sniffed out controversy without even knowing what he was looking for. "Ceremonial halls," he answered carefully. "Spaces reserved for old rites which have since fallen into disuse."
"Like what, Master?"
"Perhaps you can consult Master Nu on the matter," he suggested to escape the inquest. Unfortunately, knowing Kenobi, he actually would consult Master Nu. Let Qui-Gon deal with that mess. "This is our floor," the Korun announced.
The only visible lights on the level were a line of aging halo lamps that ran down a vast hall stretching out into darkness. Master Windu opened his holodisk to display their destination on the map. "This way," He instructed, veering off the lit path. He flicked on a small glowstick and levitated it a meter or two ahead. Obi-Wan did the same.
After a stretch of quiet procession, Obi-Wan commented, "The Force feels… strong here." It felt like a ridiculous thing to say, because of course the Force was strong in the Jedi Temple. It always had been. But this was different.
"This place is old – very old," Mace told the padawan. "The Force is… condensed here. Laminated like layers of paint. It is not stronger, but denser, closer."
Obi-Wan nodded slowly at the analogy, making sense of things. "It's easier to reach here," he concluded.
"Perhaps. Turn here."
Obi-Wan followed the councilor's lead, letting his attention wander slightly to scan his surroundings. The halls here were made entirely stone – real, quarried stone, not synthetics or duracrete, and the porous rock seemed to soak up the Force with as much thirst as he did. He took a deep breath, reveling in the soul-quenching taste of it. He could get used to this place. In the back of his mind, he wondered if he would be allowed to come back at a later date. In the more impish garden of thought that Qui-Gon had been nurturing behind the Council's back, Obi-Wan decided he didn't strictly need permission. Mace Windu's open display of a turbolift access code had been a kind of tacit permission, anyway. He filed the sequence away for future reference.
"Here we are. Bring that light over here," Master Windu instructed, leveraging the Force to open a massive door – an actual swinging, hinged door, with a handle and everything.
Inside, it was dark. Their small glow sticks cast glowing circles on the floor, but the walls were too far away to see. Floating as if in a tank of liquid darkness, the green-white lamps hovered across the room, down a short flight of stairs. Obi-Wan thought he could see the beginning of a jagged fault line in the floor.
Master Windu took something from his belt and threw it into the air above the lights. A massive blue energy ball formed in the air, suspending a bright light in the vaulted ceiling.
Obi-Wan couldn't help it when he gasped. He wasn't sure where to look first. Now illuminated, the hall was striking for its scale alone. The ceiling was vaulted an easy forty meters in the air, arches coalescing in geometric patterns far above. The walls formed were each twice as long as they were high and formed a perfect square. In each of the four corners stood statues of venerated Jedi figures, hands outstretched as if upholding the sky. The perimeter of the room was lined with alabaster pillars, all carved with ancient patterns that Obi-Wan had seen in history textbooks before. The granite floor had symmetric mosaic patterns inlaid into its surface, growing in intensity and complexity toward the center of the room, down a short set of steps into a sunken octagon of white granite. There, the glowsticks shone on the epicenter, where:
"Sweet Force," escaped his mouth.
Mace said nothing, but was inclined to agree. Mosaic tiles lay like scales around the upturned slabs, which were easily a meter thick. The Jedi stepped toward the carnage carefully, bootheels echoing loudly in the quiet. Obi-Wan lagged behind to toss his head back and ogle his immense surroundings. This place was important, he felt. Sacred, even. Why had he never heard of it?
"Do you feel that?" Master Windu was asking. Obi-Wan wrestled his focus back into the present and considered the question.
"I'm not sure…" He frowned for a moment, but actually… "Yes." It was subtle, like waves left on the surface of a pond by a fallen leaf. Or branch. Or boulder. "The Force is stronger here," he said. Not merely denser like layered paint – actually stronger, like static ozone tossed up by lightning. He let down his shields to communicate this image to Master Windu.
"Indeed," the Korun agreed, studying the invisible Force signature with a sharp eye. He laid a palm against a jutting wall of stone, feeling the residual energy coursing through. When he withdrew his hand he realized that the stone was covered in a thin layer of soot. He glanced around and saw that scorch marks pockmarked most of the exposed rubble, as if energy itself had been the shrapnel of this event. Lightning indeed. He hummed in deliberation before turning his attentions to the focal point of the caldera.
"Thank the Force it didn't break any deeper," the master said, peering down into the hole left at the very center of the room. Worn durasteel crossbeams lay like exposed but unbroken bone beneath the floor's gaping wounds. They'd have to fill the crater to avoid further deterioration. He moved his glowstick to inspect the damage. When he did, a glimmer of reflected light caught his eye. "What's this?" He asked, drawing the attention of Obi-Wan, who had been inspecting the energy field surrounding a large chunk of floor with intense concentration. Mace brushed a rock away with his boot and stooped to pick up the metallic object that had caught the light.
"What is it?" Obi-Wan asked, stepping away from his boulder.
In response, Mace pressed the ignition switch. A sapphire lightsaber blade appeared between them with a triumphant screech. He gave it a few experimental swings before retracting the blade.
"It must belong to…" Obi-Wan gulped. "To that man," He said.
"It's a wonder it works at all," Mace said, inspecting the weapon with grimace in place. "It's filthy." He looked at the make of it; simple, straight. Smooth casing, rugged black handgrip, ridged pommel, mid-set activation lever. He looked up and peered at Obi-Wan's belt.
"So… does this mean he's a Jedi?" Obi-Wan asked hesitantly.
Mace favored him a skeptical look. "It means he thinks he's a Jedi, and has gone above and beyond to prove himself." He frowned at the 'saber, rubbing a spot of grease between thumb and forefinger. "He certainly doesn't have a Jedi's sense of maintenance."
Obi-Wan wasn't entirely convinced. A real lightsaber. So the man was force sensitive; you didn't just make a lightsaber. He had to be at least associated with the Jedi. Right?
"And not just any Jedi, of course," Mace weighed the 'saber in his hands. "This one claims to be you. He's got the color right, at least." He reached out expectantly, and Obi-Wan handed him his lightsaber. "Hmm," the Korun Jedi held the two hilts parallel. There were certain similarities… shape, simplicity. Still. "Didn't get much else right," He returned Obi-Wan's lightsaber. After a brief moment of thought, he extended the stranger's lightsaber as well. "What do you think, Padawan?"
Obi-Wan reached out and took the proffered weapon. He yelled and dropped it as if burned, recoiling his hand to his chest.
"Obi-Wan?" Mace had instinctively reached for his own saber when Obi-Wan's panic shot through the Force. Now, he hesitated.
Obi-Wan wasn't listening. He was staring at the 'saber with wide eyes, mind reeling. After a heart-pounding moment, before Master Windu could step forward, Obi-Wan shot out a hand and summoned the saber to his grasp. Eyes unfocused and staring wide-eyed at nothing, he held the 'saber in a white-knuckled grip, awash in the tumultuous Force.
"…Kenobi?" Mace was saying when Obi-Wan blinked out of the trance. He was unaware, but it was the fifth time the Master had called his name. He let out a shaky breath and turned his face to look up at the older man, who looked genuinely relieved to see his young companion responsive. He fixed the apprentice with a firm look. "What happened?" he asked.
Obi-Wan opened and closed his mouth a few times, at a loss for words. "I…" he wasn't sure he believed what the Force was suggesting to him, and knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that no one else would. What could he possibly say? "I… I think I might know who he is," Obi-Wan phrased it as mildly as possible, meeting Mace's gaze and gulping at the surprise he saw there. It could not have outmeasured his own.
"Might know?" Mace asked dubiously. Obi-Wan opened and closed his mouth again. After a bit, he trained his expression in that diplomatic way he'd mastered long before Qui-Gon had been around to accuse him of deception.
"...Yes, Master."
Well, it was hardly a lie.
