Newly-promoted Jedi Master Saba Sebatyne leaped across the upper branches of the trees before her as she stalked through the jungles of nighttime Dathomir. Around and behind her, the Jedi of her Wild Knights starfighter squadron, which included her Jedi Knight son Tesar, followed in Saba's wake, were as sneaky and stealthy as she was in their hunt for guilty Witches and Nightsisters.
Immediately following the Galactic Alliance response to the signal that Kirana Ti sent out at the beginning of the attack on the Praxeum, which involved a single Star Destroyer and a sole complement of X-wings, the situation had been assessed by the forces that arrived: Dathomir's Jedi Praxeum had been burned to the ground, leaving over a quarter of the Jedi and Witch students in attendance dead in the resultant battle, while a large majority of the Witch forces who committed the attack had fled back into the jungles.
And among the dead of the Jedi and the Witches on their side was Jedi Master Streen, who had been shipped back to Denon for a traditional Jedi crematory funeral. And according to the claims of the Jedi and Witch survivors, Streen's partner in running the Praxeum, Kirana Ti, had also fled into the jungles.
Now, days later, after Streen's body was burned to ashes and subsequently scattered, Saba and the Wild Knights, having been dispatched by Jedi Master Hamner, were not only hunting for the enemy Witches and Nightsisters who had been identified by the Jedi and Witch survivors from the academy, but they were also on a search mission for the missing Kirana Ti. So far, Saba and her team had been able to neutralize two camps of Nightsisters; they had no choice but to kill the dark but unsuspecting Witches in cold blood, as much as it made Saba and her subordinate Knights feel wrong about it.
But to let their presences be known among their enemies, especially on their homeworld, would be more foolish than honorable; prior to leaving Denon for Dathomir, Saba let Kenth know that to ask for Nightsisters and whatever other Witch tribes who had helped them to surrender was not only futile, but it would also be fatal for whomever hunted them. And simply incapacitating them was out of the question; no prisoners could be taken. Hence, they had to resort to tactics that would be better used by Sith; stealth and deception; otherwise, even if they were to have used Jedi tactics of first offering their enemies the chance to surrender, regardless of whether or not the enemies themselves emerged alive or dead in their defeat, it could alert other Nightsisters and enemy Witches of the presence of Jedi.
Communication through the Force on a world like Dathomir could be all too easy between Witches.
However, Saba didn't feel as bad about it as most of the non-Barabel Knights in the Jedi Order did; she, Tesar, and their Barabel counterparts had used stealth and deception to hunt their prey back on their homeworld of Barab I... back before it had been devastated by the Yuuzhan Vong. Saba came to understand how traditional hunter tactics were typically maligned by Jedi, but even Master Hamner came to understand how and why it was important and necessary, especially when dealing with enemies as powerful as Dathomiri Witches.
Ahead, Saba could sense the Force-presences of gathered Nightsisters, and she communed through the battle-meld of the Knights with her to shield their presences from detection.
It was time to hunt again.
Saba and each of the Knights took positions around the camp of their prey, the darkness of the night sky camouflaging them from mere sight. That gave the Wild Knights the small luxury of seeing just how many Nightsisters there were here amidst their blazing campfire in the middle of the site.
But even without the fire, Saba's reptilian sight, which could accommodate for darkness, was fairly able to spot how many Nightsisters there were, roughly speaking. She counted about fifteen, all of them simply sitting around the campfire, not doing anything.
It looked too much like a trap, Saba thought. Even beings as dark as the Nightsisters of Dathomir had the barest minimum of humanity, just enough to function as a society, so Saba imagined that even they would idly chitchat amongst themselves or something along those lines, as strange - and somewhat funny - as that thought was. No, these dark Witches had to be relying on what they thought to be the Jedi's unilateral view of dark siders - that they were all stoically evil - to better lure them in.
Saba sensed that a few of the Knights in her team actually thought that of the Nightsisters; but, again, through the battle-meld, she communed for them not to attack yet.
So she reached out and probed hard for concealed Force-presences, of Nightsisters who might be lying in wait to spring the trap that the dark Witches around the campfire probably had in mind.
But after a solid minute, Saba concluded that either there was no trap - and that the Nightsisters really were that dark and evil that they wouldn't even socialize like most normal sentient beings - or that whoever lay in wait to spring a trap was very good at hiding her presence through the Force from the likes of a Jedi Master.
Either way, Saba wasn't willing to take the chance; as much as she wanted to have herself and her Wild Knights swoop in at random intervals - as they had in their previous two encounters with Nightsisters and Witches who were identified as part of the Praxeum attack - she was smart enough to know when to minimize risks at little to no cost to battle effectiveness... especially when there was a chance that it might increase that effectiveness.
Unhooking and activating her lightsaber - whilst using the Force to mute the activation noise so as to not attract the attention of the gathered Witches below - Saba then threw her lightsaber down and out to the collected Nightsisters in a spinning, Force-controlled arc.
But before the green-bladed lightsaber could swipe at any of the Witches, the ground around them erupted in a circle of green flame that completely disintegrated the lightsaber itself, hilt, blade, and all.
And like that, the Nightsisters around the campfire whirled around just as fifteen other of their brethren pushed themselves up from their cover beneath the ground, all of them brandishing Force-infused wooden staffs for combat.
Growling, Saba leaped from her perch on the tree branch that she had chosen and unleashed a Force-wave toward one of the Witches, blasting her back against one of her sisters-in-arms behind her. And upon landing, Saba landed atop an unsuspecting Nightsister, pinning her to the ground before grabbing at her throat and ripping it out through her neck with one of her scaly, taloned hands.
The Barabel Jedi Master then brought up her victim's staff into both hands, twirled it around for a few seconds, and then began to duel two vengeful Nightsisters, holding her ground against them instead of backpedaling from their fury.
Around and behind Saba, the other Jedi in the Wild Knights had already leaped from their own perches, their lightsabers alight and engaging in duels against the Nightsisters around them, often two at a time.
It didn't take long for Saba to defeat one of the Witches that she engaged, as she managed to pass over one of the attacks of the Nightsister to her right before leaping up and delivering a double-booted kick to her chest. Then, upon landing from a backward flip, she locked her still-standing opponent's staff against the loamy ground before using her free hand to punch the Nightsister in the face; this opened up a position for Saba to slit her stunned foe's throat with the pointed end of the staff that she confiscated from her first victim. And before her downed opponent could recover from the kick, Saba was already in the air even as her second victim collapsed dead, and the Barabel managed to spear the Dathomiri through the head with her staff.
And upon landing again, Saba found herself dueling a new couple of Witches, which she dispatched almost as easily as the previous two.
But as the battle in the campsite proceeded, Saba, on the periphery of her senses - both natural and through the Force - could perceive her subordinate Knights dying. There were twelve of the Knights in total, and three of them had already unwillingly joined the Force within the first five minutes.
The battle dragged on, and two more Wild Knights died, even as a total of sixteen of the Nightsisters had died, seven of them by Saba's hand. But eventually, even the Jedi Master was beginning to feel overwhelmed, and before she could kill her eighth and ninth victims, the one to her left speared the Barabel through her thigh while the one to her right slashed at her staff-wielding arm, sending the wooden weapon flying from her reptilian grasp.
Saba was then blasted by a combined Force-wave from the Witches she had just dueled and they pinned her down against the ground. And as this happened, Saba sensed two more of her Wild Knights die off, and she sensed that Tesar was heavily wounded by now. However, even with the rage and the fear for her son's safety, the battle had taken too much out of Saba, and she felt that there would be no renewal of energy that could possibly save her and her team.
But before either of the Witches could bring their staffs down to kill their helpless Barabel victim, both of them were decapitated in a single stroke by a blue-bladed lightsaber that appeared behind them.
And after both headless corpses collapsed to the ground at either side of Saba, the Barabel looked up and saw that her rescuer was Kirana Ti.
But it wasn't the Kirana Ti that Saba had come to briefly know. Yes, she was a powerful and strong Dathomiri Witch like before, but there was calmness, rationality, and a stable spirit before. Now Kirana looked deranged, unhinged, and completely lost as a sentient being.
Saba thought she saw a faint glimmer of the previous Kirana in her eyes, but the Barabel couldn't determine if that was for sure; she had already swept further across the battlefield, where she killed four more Nightsisters in rage-induced duels.
Taking advantage of the wild card that was the mad Kirana Ti, Saba and her remaining Knights took to taking care of the last ten Nightsisters.
And in the end, Saba and the remaining Knights, including wounded Tesar, emerged victorious, and Kirana stood with her back to all of them, her stare looking out into the dark depths of the jungle.
Saba stood up from kneeling over her wounded son, who was being tended to by the Wild Knights' field physician, and walked over to Kirana. But she stopped a few meters from the Witch-Jedi.
"Thank you for your help, Kirana Ti," Saba told her.
Kirana made no response; didn't even turn to look back at the Jedi Master.
Saba took no offense and moved on. "Why did you leave after the attack on the Praxeum? Where did you go?" The Barabel hesitated to ask her next question. "What happened to you?"
At this, Kirana finally turned her head to look at Saba from out of her left eye.
"Because I touched the dark side, Saba," she answered in a grim tone. "I touched it when I avenged Streen. I touched it when he died. I touched it when I killed those few Nightsisters who attacked the Praxeum. And there was nothing left for me in the ashes; now I simply exist out here, killing Nightsisters and the Witch tribes who would support them."
"We are doing the same, Kirana," Saba told her. "Join us. We could uze your help. And we have been looking for-"
Kirana whirled around, her eyes wide and maddened. "I am unworthy of being with the Order! I am tainted, forever endowed in the dark side!"
"You can be redeemed!" Saba proclaimed. "We can help you! You may come back with us to Denon!"
Kirana's teeth were gritted and there were tears at the corners of her eyes. "I cannot be helped! I am irredeemable! I can feel it in my soul!"
She then blasted Saba back with a Force-wave, much to the shock of the other Wild Knights. And when Saba looked back up in Kirana's direction, the tainted Witch-Jedi had already turned back and was rushing back through the forests.
Two of the Wild Knights moved to chase after her, but Saba stopped them with, "Wait! Let her go!"
The rest of the team looked at her in confusion.
"If she iz unwilling to be helped," Saba said as she picked herself up, "then there is nothing more we can do. I will inform Master Hamner about Kirana Ti."
"So we are to zimply give up on her?" Tesar asked, his voice still weakened from the now-healing injuries of the deep stabs and scratches across his body.
Saba narrowed her gaze on her son. "She must find her own way." She then looked back to the jungle ahead. "And besides, if she haz helped us, maybe she iz not completely lost."