"You're under arrest Mundi." Mace moved slowly into the room and met the blue-eyed glare of his former friend and Jedi. "Deactivate your saber."
Ki-Adi Mundi seemed to change appearances before his very eyes. His face was no longer one of compassion and the serenity of a Jedi, but contorted toone marked with anger and hatred. The slightest trace of yellow flashed through the icy stare.
Only then did Mace begin to grieve for the loss of his lifelong friend. It was too late, he realized. Mundi had already turned. He was no longer a Jedi. He was a sith, and he was now considered a threat to them and had to be stopped.
"What right do you have to arrest me Mace?" Ki-Adi dropped the smoldering blue cloak and held his saber up in a defensive posture. "It is you who should be arrested! And you!" Mundi's defiant gaze turned toward Obi-Wan who was standing to the left and slightly behind the larger Jedi.
"You should be expelled from the Jedi Order! You have made a mockery of everything we stand for. You have defied the Jedi Code!" His voice rose in fury as he took a step back.
"You have all been blinded. The Dark Side of the Force has twisted your minds until you can no longer see the truth."
"And what truth is that Mundi?" Mace slowly approached the retreating form. He had a bad feeling about this. Obi-Wan felt it as well and matched Mace's movements, though neither had ignited their lightsabers.
"Darkness has infected the Temple! It has infected the Jedi. Even Master Yoda."
Mundi's eyes burned with his anger but his voice quieted in his fury. "You will not make me a part of it."
"Mace." Obi-Wan quietly murmured his warning as Ki-Adi had reached the broad expanse of window along the wall.
But before either could stop him, Ki-Adi swung his lightsaber, shattering the glass behind him and flung himself out of the window, plummeting to his death on the busy Coruscant street below.
"No!" Obi-Wan rushed to the window pane now spiked with shards of broken glass. He watched in despair as Mundi's body struck the pavement ten stories down.
In frustration, he swung toward Mace. "Why didn't you stop him?"
Mace sunk to his knees in front of the glass-covered floor. "I...I didn't think he'd do it." His grief softened his words. "I'm sorry Obi-Wan."
Obi-Wan turned his back to the nearby wall and slid down to the floor. Unlike Windu who was grieving for the loss of a friend and fellow Jedi, Obi-Wan found himself grieving for the loss of information. The one chance he felt he had at finding Padmé and his baby.
His head fell heavily into his hands. Without the bond, he had had little hope in finding them. But now with Mundi dead, he watched as his hopes shattered, much like the body that lay on the street below.
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Sweat poured from his body, his light inner tunic soaked and sticking to his skin. His lightsaber moved in a blue blur through a serious of vigorous thrusts and swings as if he were fighting an unseen enemy.
Mace watched Obi-Wan from across the training room. It had been three days since Mundi's suicide and the knight hadn't spoken a word. If he wasn't in the training rooms, he was in the meditation garden.
The council was worried about him, but not as much as Mace. He felt responsible. If only he had stopped Mundi from jumping through that window. Then, they could have gotten some answers from him, found out where Padmé was and the baby. Found out who the sith master was. If only...
He continued watching Obi-Wan in the dim lighting of the training room, only to discover who he was actually fighting. The what ifs.
Unable to think of anything to say to the young knight that would comfort him, Mace turned and left him alone in the room.
Obi-Wan had the vague realization of Windu's departure, switched off his lightsaber, taking rapid gulping breaths and flung the weapon across the room.
His chest heaved in exhaustion. His mind reeled in disappointment. The work-outs weren't helping and neither were the hours he had spent in meditation.
He was moving beyond despair, beyond hopelessness. For the first time in his life, he had feelings of complete anguish, thoughts of utter despair. Thoughts of dying.
But he couldn't give up yet. In his heart, he still believed that if Padmé had become one with the Force, he would have felt it. She was still alive. She had to be. And as long as believed that, he would not give up. He just couldn't. He was going to find her. Somehow.