Disclaimer: My shtick is better than bacon…

CHAPTER FIVE: Qui-Gon Generational Gap

Agen frowns down at the piece of flimsi Mace had just handed him. "You're going about this all wrong, you know."

He'd been afraid of that. "I know we're missing something, I'm just not sure what."

Agen handed the offending list back, pointing at the last note on the page. "It doesn't matter if Master T'un and Master Piell haven't spoken. The whole point of having Piell as a decoy is that no one would look twice at the real Shadow-master. Which by necessity means that either the Shadow-master has to pretend to be Master Piell's greatest friend in the world, hiding in plain sight, or or has to pretend to have never met the man before in his life. Adi, did your Master and Master T'un ever speak to each other before this Master Tholme guy got assigned as a Watchman?"

"Okay, first of all, Master Tholme was not a guy." Adi snapped. "He was a dude. Big difference. Secondly…no." She sighed. "No, they never spoke to each other."

Agen leaned back and opened his arms wide. "There; see? Nothing would've been more suspicious than two people who've never even talked to each other before becoming best friends. On the flip side, if the two of them never interacted even before Master Tholme was assigned elsewhere, and if we know for a fact that Master Piell is a Shadow…"

Adi nodded in affirmation. "He is."

"...Then it would've been awfully hard for T'un to ever give Master Piell marching orders of any sort. In short, all this," Agen gestured to the flimsi, "proves exactly nothing. And is confusing to think about to boot. If you guys really wanna find the Shadow-master, then you're missing the big question."

Mace leaned in. "What's that?"

Agen's grin could've made a nexu envious. "Who has the authority to assign a Reconciliation Council member as a Watchman?"

Adi frowned. "The High Council; why?"

"Exactly;" Agen jabbed a finger, "Why. Why would they do that? Answer: they wouldn't. Not without knowing something we don't. So, where do we need to look?"

"...At the High Council member who wanted Master Tholme assigned elsewhere?" Mace replied hesitantly.

"Ding ding ding ding!" Agen clapped his hands together, "You guessed it!"

Adi stared. "...Can we do that?"

Agen began rubbing his hands together in anticipation. "I don't see why not; give me a few days to slice the official minutes of the meeting, and I'll know right where to start."

"By all means then," Mace gestured, "fire away."

Agen saluted. "Aye, aye Senior Padawan sir!"

Mace groaned and buried his head in his hands. "Please don't do that."

Adi patted him gently on the back. "Such is the price of infamy, Padawan Windu."

His answering glare was met with peals of laughter. Derision and mockery; was this to be his lot in life now?

Mace never would've dreamed admitting it, not in a million years, but there were times he actually began to look forward to his time spent in the creche. The Hawkbat Clan was generally a quiet one, for all that the name made you expect otherwise. The loudest members by far were a young Wookie whose name Mace still couldn't get quite right…and a certain young female Mirialan that was now barrelling towards him at top speed.

"PA'WAN WIN!"

He met the youngling's charge with a laugh and a hug. "Hey there, You."

'You', aka Youngling Luminara Unduli, smiled a big gummy grin up at him. "Pa'wan Win! You come!"

"Well of course I came," he answered with a smile of his own, "I couldn't miss the finger-painting contest, now could I!"

Luminara squealed in delight, wriggled out of his arms, and then proceeded to drag him along to the arts and crafts room.

The arts and crafts room was where they'd first met, actually; thankfully no finger-painting had been involved that time. The rest of Hawkbat Clan had been generally wary of their new minder, but not Luminara Unduli. She had marched right up to him and introduced herself completely seriously as 'Young'ing You-m'ara 'Duli', and Mace had felt his heart crack on the spot. She would never be his Padawan; Mirialan Knights had raised their own for well over six hundred years and counting. But Mace could tell only all too well that she'd be important to someone close to him someday, and therefore important to him. Shatterpoints for the win.

And so he had bent down to be face-to-face with the serious Youngling and introduced himself as 'Pa'wan Mace Win', and could she please introduce him to everyone else since she'd done such a good job of doing it for herself?

An hour and a half later, and for some unfathomable reason, Hawkbat Clan had collectively decided that 'Pa'wan Win' was the coolest ever. He had a standing invitation from the creche-master to come back anytime, and permission from Youngling Unduli to be the only one ever allowed to refer to her as 'You'. All in all, a successful day.

The next week had been the Glitter Incident.

Mace still didn't know why the creche-master had let him come back after that.

Presumably so that they didn't have to be the one to judge things like finger-painting.

There were six fully finished canvases, all of them splattered with the most eclectic combinations of color ever. Most of which had apparently gotten soaked into the floor instead of the paintings. And standing beside five of the canvases were the rest of Clan Hawkbat, all as equally covered in paint as everything else.

Mace gritted his teeth, shoved a smile onto his face, and walked into the chaos.

Master Cin Drallig was nowhere near as bad as the rest of the Temple made him out to be. He was worse.

The Battlemaster had begun by brutally dissecting the recording of Mac'e duel with Qui-Gon, and by the end Mace had been left feeling about as tall as a mouse droid. And then, the man had built him up again by praising his attention to theory, endurance, and speed.

"Your main problem," the Battlemaster had grunted, "is that you've pretty much only fought Djem So and Ataru with this little gimmick of yours. And there's already more than enough Form variations out there to grind those practitioners into paste. Here,"

Master Drallig had pulled out a datapad and begun slashing away with his stylus. "Without getting too deep into nuances, it's generally agreed there's five main components to saber combat: Endurance, Strength, Agility, Dexterity, and the Force. You've tailored your approach to counter Strength and Agility, Forms V and IV respectively. But Makashi and pure Soresu already counter them already, and counter them well. If this is truly to be a new Form, then I advise learning how to use it to beat the unbeatable."

Niman. Master Drallig meant Niman. The Unbeatable Form. Named as such because it simply had none of the glaring weaknesses that the others did, while also maintaining no obvious strengths. Key-word being "obvious". Niman users could channel the Force like no others, allowing them to engage in saber combat while simultaneously manipulating the environment around them. Force Pushes, Force Pulls, even Emerald Lightning were all nothing to a Master of Niman.

Unfortunately, the Sixth Form was all but extinct for one simple reason: it was next-to-impossible to master. Living Force, Unifying Force, Cosmic Force, it made no difference. It was just that hard. Not to mention that to the up-and-coming, it lacked the flair that most other Forms possessed. Master Aveross was one of the last practicing Niman users that Mace knew.

Apparently, the same was true for Master Drallig. "I've already spoken with Knight Aveross; he will be assisting us with this endeavor. And if he chooses to pass on what he learns here in a saber class of his own, well, there's not much the Council of First Knowledge can say about it."

The Battlemaster returned his stylus and pad to his belt. "I think we've covered enough for today, Padawan Windu. Now; assigned work. I want you to go back and rewatch that recording; rewatch it until your eyes bleed. And when you return, I fully expect you to be able to explain, in your own words, precisely what the difference was between the first half of your duel…and the second. Dismissed."

"I got it."

Mace grunted as Agen slid into the seat next to him. These benches were tight, kark it, and Adi had already been squeezed in tight enough on the other side. Why oh why could they not scrape a little out of the budget to fix the cafeterias that weren't the main one?

From beside him, Adi looked up from her coursework. "Got what?"

"The High Council's report. Was surprisingly easy to find and believe me, if I ever meet the actual Master of Shadows, they and I are going to have words about Temple security."

Mace patted him on the back. "I'm sure you will, Agen. Now, what'd you find out?"

"Well to start with," Agen grunted as he carved into the unidentifiable meat on his tray, "the person who recommended the posting was Master Yaddle."

"Master Yaddle…" Mace muses. "Didn't she use to be on the Council of First Knowledge?"

"Yep!" says Agen gleefully. "Guess who replaced her?"

"Jocasta Nu." replied Adi dryly.

Agen's smile turned into a pout. "No fair!" he whined. "I'm supposed to be the one with the answers here!"

Adi's icy look could've frozen the entire Room of a Thousand Fountains. "By all means then, continue."

Agen grumbled to himself a bit longer but eventually did so. "Right; pretty obvious Master Yaddle reports to the Shadow-master, especially when you consider that Master Piell was the one to second her motion. Which, unfortunately, throws half of our reasoning out the window. If the Shadows already had a spy on the High Council, to say nothing of two, then their need for a place on the Council of Reconciliation becomes moot. All we're left with is the assumption that they wanted the post simply to throw suspicion off of somewhere else. Odds are still good it's the Council of First Knowledge, we've just got to start looking at things differently."

Adi hummed, and then paused. "...Idea."

Mace turned to face her. "Shoot."

"Can you retire from being the Master of Shadows?"

Mace thought about it. "...I suppose it's possible."

"Good. And the most likely reason for retirement would be aging out, correct?"

Something begins to glint in the depths of Agen's eyes. "Correct."

"And how old is Master Yaddle again?" Adi finishes smugly.

There is a look of triumph on Agen's face. "Over seven hundred at least. Madame Nu was barely forty when she replaced Yaddle as the Head Librarian; do you think…?"

Mace cut him off there. "Moot point. Madame Nu's getting older now too; if she's the Shadow-master, she's either training a replacement or already appointed one. Which leaves back at square one: with the whole Council of First Knowledge under suspicion. Well, bar Master Drallig, because there is no way that maniac has any time at all left over after running the Temple Guards."

"I've heard stories." Agen agreed. "Has anyone ever even seen him sleep?"

Mace shook his head. "Not that anyone's willing to admit to. It's intimidating is what it is."

Adi smacked him reassuringly on the shoulder. "Chin up; you're Senior Padawan Mace Windu. I'm sure you can handle one overly-energetic Battlemaster."

Mace shuddered. "It's not just the one; it's all the overly-energetic younglings as well. If this schedule keeps up I may have to beg Master Drallig for lessons in sleep management."

His friends just laughed. Because of course they did.

"So," he asked, once the cackles finally subsided, "do we start looking for connections between Madame Nu's students and the rest of the First Knowledge Council? Or between Yaddle's and the Council?"

Agen and Adi conferred silently over the top of his head. "...Both." Adi finally said. "Both is good."

Agen nodded. "I'll start as soon as I can then."

"Good." Mace turned back to his meal."

"Oh!" said Adi, "I almost forgot: who won the finger-painting contest?"

He grunted between mouthfuls. "Quiet kid named Vosa. Used a scary amount of red paint. Said it was supposed to be the blood of the rancor I killed. I get the feeling that if I knew what a rancor was, I'd be much more impressed with myself."

Fwip-fwip-fwip-fwip-fwip. "There;" Adi pointed to the opened page, "That is a rancor."

Two legs. Two arms. Torso built like an asteroid. Mouth full of teeth. "...I take it back. They expect me to be able to fight that thing? How the kriff am I supposed to live up to that expectation?"

"Simple." Agen grinned. "You come with me and Master Rael the next time we go to Nar Shadaa. People will believe anything if you tell 'em it happened there. Even fighting a rancor and winning."

Mace snorted. "Knowing your luck, that's exactly what we'd end up having to do."

"Hey! I resemble that remark!"

Of all the things Mace expected Qui-Gon Jinn to do, taking on a Padawan so soon after being Knighted was not one of them. But Master Dooku had.

"I took on Rael only after helping Sifo-Dyas and Jocasta raise their own first Padawans to adulthood first." the elder Master confessed one day over tea. "I sought to avoid mistakes whenever possible, and so watched and learned for as long as I could before making my own first attempt. I was so very proud when Rael was Knighted; was, and am. His path was not mine, but I knew that when I took him on. He is a credit to the Jedi Order."

Adi gently stirred her cup of Galentalan brew. "More than that, he is a credit to you, Master Dooku."

Dooku tilted his head in thanks. "I am pleased to hear it. Speaking of, how is your training with him proceeding, Padawan Gallia? I know that Master Piell's schedule has grown increasingly filled as of late, and I do not wish to see your own time spent idly waiting for assistance. Has Rael been attentive enough in his instruction?"

"Oh yes, Master Dooku; more than attentive." Adi took a sip of tea. "As it stands, Master Shaak Ti has been more than gracious enough to assist me as well when Master Piell is busy. She's still rather put out that one of her 'debating prodigies' is denied to her, so she's been more than anxious to see the one she has remaining succeed. As such, I have rather more 'attention' than I can sometimes handle."

Master Dooku stroked his chin. "Yes, that rather does sound like the Padawan I remember."

Mace's ears perked up. "Oh? You knew her as a Padawan?"

"Oh, we met once or twice." waved Dooku dismissively. "She and her Master were quite frequently assigned to the same missions as Sifo-Dyas and his Apprentice. It was inevitable that we would run into each other sooner or later."

There was something…something about Master Dooku's statement that tickled at the back of Mace's brain. Some instinct from the Force that told him this was important. He'd have to investigate later.

Meanwhile, Adi's own intuition had apparently led her in another direction. "Do you perchance happen to know who trained Master T'un, Master Dooku?"

Dooku frowned. "Master T'un…the Curator of Records, correct?"

Adi nodded. "Yes Master."

"Hmm. I'm afraid that I know very little about the man. Master Saa?"

"Yes?" came the faint reply from the kitchen.

"Are you perhaps acquainted with Master T'un?"

Master Saa stuck her head out the door into the main room. "That old crust-bucket? Literally the only person Jocasta detests more than me?"

"That would be the one, yes. Do you happen to know who trained him?"

"Oppo Rancisis, I believe."

"Ah." Dooku grimaced. "That could explain it. Thank you for enlightening us."

"Not at all." And Master Saa's head disappeared once more.

Adi watched her vanish, then turned to face Mace with wariness etched on her features. "...Mace?"

"Yes, Padawan Gallia?" he replied blithely.

"What, exactly, is your Master making in there?"

He frowned. "Zatib soup, I think. Why?"

"Because everyone in the Temple agrees that Master Yoda's soup is the worst, and not even Master Yoda is brave enough to eat anything your Master fixes."

"That is because," he replied dryly, "everyone else in the Temple thinks making something hot entails dumping half a teaspoon of spice in for every gallon of stew. Master Yoda at least believes in a full tablespoon."

Adi gulped. "And how much does Master Saa believe in?"

"Three tablespoons to the quart."

There was silence. And then Master Dooku simply said:

"Oh dear."

Mace was terrified.

He had watched and watched and watched and watched, and with every viewing his list of differences between the two halves of his duel just kept growing longer and longer. But underneath it all was a sense that he was overlooking something fundamentally important; some critical piece of deduction that should've been blindingly obvious. And no matter how hard he banged his head against the wall, all he could think of to do was watch the recording again.

So here he was, three hundred and forty-seven rewatches in, standing in front of Master Drallig to give his observations. Utterly, and completely, terrified.

"Report, Padawan Windu."

And snapping to attention, he did so.

He got halfway through describing the discreet shift in grip on his saber after the Makashi strike that he'd been previously unaware of before Master Drallig stopped him. "No, no no; by the Force, lad, you've somehow managed to miss the whole point! How the kark did you ever get this far without someone noticing?"

The inside of his mouth felt like a desert. "...Noticed what, sir?" he rasped.

"That not even you know what you're doing! At all! You're doing it completely on instinct! Son of a kriffing gundark!"

Master Drallig ripped out his datapad and began typing away with vigor. "Here; I'm giving you access to restricted files. Not many, but enough for you to get the general idea of what you're missing. And once you're done watching, I want you to go and talk to that Master of yours, who I know for a fact has fought at least one Sith in her very long life, and ask her just how the kriff she didn't recognize what you were doing."

Mace just stared. SITH? Who the kriff said anything about SITH?

"Well? What are you waiting for lad? GIT!"

Mace got.

He didn't cry; he didn't. He was in too much shock to cry. That single word kept cycling through his head like a judge pronouncing both verdict and sentence at the same time:

Sith. Sith. Sith. Sith.

The Temple had all but rioted when he'd brought back his purple crystal from Hurrikane. If this ever got out, they would bury him. And they would use the words of Master T'un to do it.

Help. He needed help. And to his shame, he found his feet headed not towards his and his Master's quarters, but to Master Dooku's instead.

No.

Going to another Master had been what set Qui-Gon Jinn down his path. Mace refused to do the same. No matter how much he wanted to see literally anyone except Master Saa.

Gritting his teeth, he turned away. Later. He would come back later.

He had to.

Juyo. He'd been copying Juyo.

No, not the moveset of the notoriously Dark Seventh Form, nor the intentions that drove it; but the effect, the effect…that had still been the same. What Mace had created that day in the second half of his duel was a literal whirlpool in the Force; sucking in his opponents exerted energy and using it to replenish his own.

And he had no idea how the kriff he had done it.

Juyo was supposed to be based on Strength and Dexterity; not the Endurance of Soresu and the Agility of Ataru. It was why Niman had been created in the first place: Sith Juyo practitioners had been experts at 'pulling' the Force around them into their own bodies to enhance their physical prowess. Form VI had been meant to allow the Jedi to challenge that control directly by both depriving the Sith of their power source and enabling attacks against their weak spot: their rear.

People who used Juyo had exactly one direction to go: forward. Juyo users never retreated. Ever. They might lead an opponent where they wanted them to go, like a Soresu user, but they always faced any threats head-on. No counterplay; only attack. It was a demanding, ugly, brutal Form.

Oh, and one other thing: it had absolutely no non-lethal strikes.

Soresu users could retreat by deflecting. Ataru users could avoid by leaping. Niman users could engage by denying. Makashi, Djem So, even Shii-cho and Shien could all theoretically be used against the Seventh Form. But there was a reason it seemed only Jedi Masters were allowed to view the files on it, much less learn it. If you messed up against a Juyo user, you were dead. Period.

The latest recording that Master Drallig had sent him was one of a quite clearly younger Master Ti facing a training droid in the salle. The droid had been using Juyo. Master Ti had been using Djem So.

The fight had lasted twenty-seven seconds. Master Ti had lost her lightsaber on the twenty-fifth. The droid had gone for a beheading on the twenty-sixth. It had been stopped with milliseconds to spare.

And the kriffing thing hadn't even been Force-sensitive.

For a split second, a Shatterpoint hung over the recording: another time, another place. But the same combatants. Master Shaak Ti…and a droid with burning golden eyes. And Master Ti was losing.

Then the image blurred, twisted, changed. Same time. Same place. But now, Master Ti was winning.

Mace gasped and dropped the pad.

A vision; a vision from the Force. Mace never got visions. Which implied…it hadn't been his vision at all. Just an echo, across time and space, of someone else's. Not psychometry; he hadn't seen anything at all of the past. Just a possible future. Two possible futures.

Probably Master Ti's. It would explain why she had been training to fight against Juyo. What it couldn't explain was why Master Drallig had made his ridiculous offer to Mace, clearly already knowing what would be at the heart of any new Form they created. Unless…

Unless the vision had been Master Drallig's instead. Unless the Battlemaster had seen what might happen to Master Ti, and convinced her to train to prevent it. Unless the Captain of the Temple Guard himself had seen something similar in store for Mace.

Was Master Drallig strong in the Unifying Force? Strong in visions? Maybe. He was a Sentinel, after all. Much like Master Dooku.

Like Master Dooku…that itching he'd gotten during their weekly tea together was back. There was something he was missing, something on the tip of his tongue. A revelation that would explain everything.

Well, except why no one else had seemingly noticed what Mace had been doing. Then again, the more Mace thought about it, the more he began to wonder: had he really ever touched the Force in that specific way before the duel? He didn't think so. It would've been pretty memorable.

Only those who had been in the room that day would've felt the effects of his actions; and it was next to impossible to tell exactly what Mace had been doing from the recording alone. Even he'd only managed to piece it together after reading some of what Master Drallig sent him. Because what the authors had described perfectly was how he had felt: like the world itself was being pulled into his orbit, and then launched like a missile towards his opponent, with his blade as the engine.

How had no one else noticed? Master Yoda had been there; surely he had seen Juyo before? Master Dooku was a Sentinel; the same went for him. Madame Nu had probably seen each and every file on Master Drallig's datapad. For crying out loud, Master Rael's Niman was literally designed to fight Juyo! How had they not recognized what was going on in front of them?

Or had they…

A gulp got itself stuck in Mace's throat. Suddenly the High Council's ban against him teaching made a lot more sense. If Yoda had noticed, and drawn his own conclusions, then…

He swallowed. Then things had just gotten a whole lot harder. Master T'un's words began to echo through the canyons being torn in his plans: Rose victoriously, or crashed dramatically. Rose victoriously, or crashed dramatically.

Juyo was Dark. Infamously so. Should he go on? Continue developing it's Light counterpart? Or should he quit? Give up, and shuffle back to the Soresu and Ataru that he knew?

He'd ask Master Saa. He'd ask Master Dooku. He'd literally anyone and everyone he could think of. But before all that; he had to ask himself:

What would Qui-Gon Jinn do?

The answer came swiftly.

Qui-Gon Jinn would never even dream of touching anything that was in any way remotely Dark. He had shunned his Master's path, the path of a Sentinel, for the one of a Consular. A glorified diplomat who played nice with politicians when it suited him, and then dug in his heels like a dewback when it didn't. It was about as far away from the shadows of the world as you could get. As far away from Dooku as he could get.

Qui-Gon Jinn hated aggression. Hated it. And yet he practiced one of the most aggressive Forms of lightsaber combat with zeal..

And up until right that very moment, so had Mace.

Unacceptable.

He would still ask anyone and everyone he could think of. But for now, he had at least part of an answer. He would eschew Jinn's hypocrisy. He would turn Juyo into the least-aggressive Form in existence. And he would do it while proclaiming the benefits of a first-strike, each and every time. The Antares Exchange was out. The Queen's Gambit was in.

Agen and Adi said to go for it.

Master Dooku had been absolutely floored, but still supportive.

Master Piell had repeatedly thunked his head against his desk and then advised a retreat back to Ataru.

Master Dyas had collapsed, caught up in a horrifying vision that he later relayed had been one of a massive war between 'droids of flesh and droids of metal'. Not exactly very encouraging.

Master Aveross had still thought it a marvelous idea, if for no other reason than he wanted to test both himself and his student(s) against an unfamiliar Form.

But Master Saa…Master Saa had been heartbroken.

"I didn't know." she said. Over and over again. "I didn't know, I didn't know…"

She hadn't stopped until Mace had brewed a pot of her favorite sapir and handed her a cup. The warm touch seemed to bring her back to reality.

"I didn't know. None of us did. There was a war on; we didn't have time. No one did. No time for us to teach Niman, no time for the Sith to teach Juyo. We were shoved onto battlefields with a bare understanding of one or two Forms and expected to survive. All of us. Master Fay was the only one…she would've known. She always knew. She buried her lightsaber after the war. She said the Sith had been just as much victims as we were. Like shaaks to the slaughter. She taught me Makashi; taught me always to disarm. Never to kill. And so I did. I never…I wouldn't…the Sith I fought were barely worth the title. Just as I was barely worthy to be a Knight. I never dreamed…"

After that, she said nothing more.

They remained there in silence for many an hour.

It was only once the tea ran out that they both started to cry.

"I'll call Master Fay."

"Don't." said Mace softly. "She's already interfered on my behalf once; I'd hate to…"

"To what?" Master Saa asked sharply. "To be accused of favoritism? The rest of the Temple has no room to make such an accusation. And if they try, both Master Fay and I will put a stop to it. You need help, Mace; help I cannot give. I will not fail you again, Padawan; I can't."

He hugged her. "You never did, Master. You never did."