Hello all! Here is the next part of Fall.

Yoda is actually much harder to write than I thought he would be.

Thanks to everyone who reviewed!

Fall

Yoda

It hits Yoda all at once, like a lightsaber to the chest.

It's startling, sudden, and completely unexpected. Never, in all his centuries of life, has he ever encountered such a swift, agonizing up swell of death. The Force is all but screaming at him, so great is the pain. His heart stutters and a chill laces up his spine.

His gimmer stick clatters to the floor, his grip on it loosened in his shock.

Jedi, he realizes with growing horror, all of these deaths are of Jedi.

Thousands upon thousands, all in a single moment.

Something has happened. Something is wrong. So very, very wrong.

He kneels, picking up his gimmer stick, a grim set to his mouth. He reaches out to the Force, chaotic as it is, searching, hoping for an answer.

It comes from an unexpected place.

He hears Commander Gree approaching behind him, the same time that his Force signature wavers and then expands outwards. Taught him to broadcast, Master Luminara must have, he thinks. He reaches out through the Force and latched onto the threads of the Commander's presence.

Yoda only gets sensations at first: panic, desperation. He can't understand why the Commander would feel such a thing. Then thoughts filter in.

G – eral! You have to stop us!

Stop them? Yoda's brow furrows in thought. The Commander's presence is steadily moving closer.

You have to get out! Commander Gree projects, loud and frantic. Order 66 has been – GOOD SOLDIERS FOLLOW ORDERS.

Yoda jerks away from the mental contact, startled by the intrusion. That was not the Commander. Yoda frowns. And yet. He reaches out again, grasping the threads more firmly. Yes. The strange intrusion is one with the Commander's presence. What does that mean? Why does it make him uneasy?

Gree's panic has skyrocketed. It's flowing off the man in waves so great it's threatening to drown him. The Commander comes to a halt behind him and Yoda feels that desperate tug in his mind yet again.

General! We're going to kill you! Stop us, sir, STOP US!

GOOD SOLDIERS FOLLOW ORDERS.

Yoda hears Gree and Scout arm up behind him. He stops thinking and moves, years of training and instinct surging forward in a single breath. His lightsaber springs forth, the green blade slicing through both metal and flesh with ease before he flings the two troopers back with a wave of his hand.

Tarfful and Chewbacca let out startled howls.

He frowns, adrenaline singing in his blood, feeling unbalanced even as the wrongness fades. He examines the troopers' wounds. He'd sliced through both of the blasters aimed at him, but he'd also caught Gree's left hand and most of the lower half of his right arm in the stroke. Scout has retained all of his limbs, but his blasters' battery pack exploded after the initial strike, leaving him scorched.

This is troubling. Most troubling.

Commander Gree's reaction leads him to believe this was not the Commander's choice. There is also the strange presence he sensed to consider.

The Wookies are urging him to flee and Chewbacca offers his back. Yoda hops onto the Wookie's shoulders as he reaches for the only other Jedi on Kashyyyk.

Master Luminara, been betrayed, we have!

I know! Is the swift reply. I don't understand! What's happened?

Know, I do not. Yoda thinks of Gree's desperation, of his plea. Not of the clones doing, this is. Want this, they would not. Defend yourself, you must.

Yoda can sense the conflict in the other Master. I will, Master. Go. And may the Force be with you.

And with you, young one.

"Return to Coruscant, I must," he says to his companions.

The Force hums ominously. Dark and dangerous the galaxy has become in a way that it was not just moments before. Yoda feels it resonating in his bones.

The Fall has only just begun.

End arc.

Just letting you guys know that updates are probably going to be slowing waaaaaay down. I've reached the end of the stuff I've typed up pre-posting and working full time limits how much writing time I have. That said, I will try and update as often as I can!

Until next time,

~Elri