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"That's when he took it out," Johan agreed. "Look, smoke pellet remnants, he must have escaped."

"She probably let him go, so she could get the ambassador to safety." I said. "But where to?"
"The back up headquarters, in case this very thing happened." Johan smiled knowingly.

"Lead the way." I held out my hand indicating his new role with a smirk.

"So this is it?" I asked skeptically.

We were standing outside of another temple, but this one held no ominous beasts inside. I could sense Raena's constantly blended power inside of it. This temple had a gray color to it, indicating the stone that it had been built out of, but it was about the same size as the last one.

"Cozy huh?" He smirked at me walking in.

He led me inside and we made a right turn down a bare hallway until we reached a door at the very end of the tunnel-like passage.

"No time to decorate?" I jokingly asked.

"You don't like my homey touches?" he returned.

We walked down a stairwell for a little distance until we turned the corner and entered what seemed to be a military strategizing room. I saw Raena circling the ambassador protectively, her pink blade extended, with a look of focused determination on her face.

"Raena!" I called to her.

Her look of determination dissolved immediately and she retracted her light saber rushing over towards me. She leapt into my arms and I caught her easily kissing her deeply, indicating my longing for her during our time apart.

"What happened?" Raena asked.

"The temple we found was a decoy, some kind of weird beasts attacked us from the shadows. It was sort of like fighting you, if you'd been intoxicated, hairy and clumsy." I laughed.

"Nothing like anything I'll ever be." she smiled back. "The Kashill were raiding random homes, with the support of the people. They're like some kind of local heroes around here, the natives really take to these militia uprisings."

"You'd think they want the peace," Johan sounded confused.

"Anyways," Ambassador Tressle spoke up. "They got lucky and banged on the right building."

"Then what?" I asked.

"Well, you know me. I let them in." Raena started walking towards where we came from and peeking up the staircase. "They saw Nora in the middle of the room unprotected, and figured they'd picked off all of her guards, and they rushed in."

"Wait picked off all of her guards?" I interrupted.

"Yes..." Ambassador Tressle bowed her head, tears pouring from her eyes. "The rest of the guards were attacked while they were gathering your information, they were mostly annihilated."

"How do you know?" Johan sounded especially concerned. "How can you be sure."

"Because we saw it all," a quiet voice spoke up from my right.

Whipping my head around I saw the 2 remaining guards sitting on two of the stray couches in the shelter-like room. On the nearest couch a tanned light skinned male was holding a gauze to a heavily bleeding forehead. Sweat poured from his head, neck and arms, and his face was twisted in pain. I cringed as I saw the blood squeezing its way between his fingers. I remembered the words of this officer: "...while they may not kill you, you definitely will be seriously injured." Paris Kendal was looking at his fellow surviving officer, Roger Evans, who was the one who had spoken. Roger was pale, had a look to him that sort of indicated a wiley rodent that was quick on its feet. His eyes, which had glimmered with hope at Raena's words earlier, now seemed to be crazed with horror at what he saw.

"The Kashill have grown more ruthless, they didn't spare anyone in the library, they don't even allow the innocent to live now," his voice shook violently. "It was by pure luck that we found a weapon to kill them with."

"What weapon?" I asked suddenly wondering what could have defeated the Kashill so decisively by simply harnessing it.

"This," Paris held his hand out.

I grabbed the handle of a small light saber with a gasp of astonishment. This was a sign that a Jedi was in the library, or used to be in the light saber. From the up-to-date design I was sure the Jedi was alive and still as active as myself. I ignited it hoping to see what I could learn of this mystery Jedi Knight. The blade glowed orange as it snapped to life with an initially violent hum until it reached it's normal sound level.

"Oh my god," Raena gasped.

"Johan," I said suddenly trusting him immensely. "Use this only if you have no other means of defense."

"Yes sir," He caught the handle as I tossed it to him.

"And be careful with it to no end. I doubt you'll want the Jedi who this belongs to, to be angry with you." I warned.

"Yes sir," he hid it with a smile of admiration.

"Tell me what happened," I looked at Paris.

Paris grimaced as if he would rather not relive the details, I could sense his immense pain and fear at the Kashill's suddenly aggressive move. So rather than speak what had happened, he summarized the events in the library in a simple, gruesome move. He moved the inch thick gauze away from his forehead, and I suddenly felt my stomach turn. Paris Kendal had not suffered from a simple deep gash on the forehead; some powerful blow had very literally opened his head. The skin was nonexistant around his wound and you could see a bloody and cracked dome-shaped bone as the exponentially weakened defense around his brain. On closer expection, through the help of the force, I could see small holes around the cracks of Paris' skull. I dropped to my knees in horror as I suddenly felt the kind of pain Paris and Roger had gone through. It was as though seeing them had unlocked my mind to their true torture, and I wasn't ready for the waves of angst I was now receiving.

"Force help me," I shuddered. "What have I led you into?"
"It's not your fault," Roger spoke up. "In actuality, we were very sloppy in watching our flanks."

"No!" I told Roger, standing up firmly. "This is my responsibility alone. I can not express how deeply I must apologize to you both. I knew there was danger, but this is far beyond anything I would have expected."

"Déshawn it's not-" Raena began until I interrupted her.

"It is," I corrected her through gritted teeth. "I, me, am their commanding officer. I, me, sent them on that assignment. I, me, didn't bother to monitor their safety, and make sure they were prepared. I, me, let this happen!"

"Look, really we don't blame you," Paris comforted me placing a new gauze on his gruesome injury.

"I would feel a lot better if 'we' was more people than I can count on half of a hand," I growled.

"We got the schematics you needed," Roger said holding out a datapad in a shaking hand.

I took it gently and deposited it in my robes, more concerned with their health than my pointless information. I'd originally intended it as a way to keep them away from the Ambassador so Raena and I could protect her better, and now...

"Let me heal you two," I said walking over to them as I gathered the Force within myself.

I walked over to Paris and let warm, rejuvenating energy flow over his head, sealing the cracks and holes in his head, and repairing the parts of his brain that had been bruised; which happened to be most of it. After I finished healing Paris as best I could, I walked over to Roger, who lay in a tenderized state. He leaked so much blood that his body seemed to be turned inside out from his neck to his knees. Most of it was caked on his chest, and I suddenly realized the reason for his pale face: he didn't have enough blood to hold his color. I began to mentally help his body to regenerate the unscrupulous amounts of blood cells lost. His color gradually returned to his face, and I thought I'd sealed many of his deep contusions, which had reached a point that they began to bleed profusely. He stopped shaking as if he were about to go into cardiac arrest, and I stepped back and observed my work, unsatisfied that this was all I'd been able to do for them. Force! How I wish that this could all have been put onto me.

"Thank you," Roger breathed.

"We appreciate this really," Paris said.

"It's...the least I could do," my breathing had grown heavy with suppressed vengeance.

"Now what?" Raena asked tentatively.

"Now I study this datapad, and the Ambassador readies for her negotiations." I told her in a resigned voice. "You just relax and get ready Raena. Johan, I want you to practice with your temporary weapon."

"Yes, sir," Johan nodded dutifully and left the room.

"What can we do to help?" Paris stood up shakily, grimacing as he clutched Roger's shoulder as a wave of dizziness threatened to sit him back down.

"What can you describe to me? Anything that may help them identify each other such as an emblem, any markings, even clothing style," I told him sitting down in a nearby couch.

"It was hard to really get a good look at them, because there was so much smoke around." Roger's voice shook in reminiscence. "Not to mention the innocent people were running around too much, it was chaos. When the smoke finally began to get a little clear, most of the bystanders were dead, and it was only me, Paris and the other guards left."

"When the smoke cleared, they cut the lights out." Paris took the story up in a more steady voice. I found that even in the grim situation I had to admire their tactics and brilliant attack strategy. "I'm not sure what happened from then on. I heard something whizzing, then a scream of pain, and then I got hit on the head and blacked out."

"Well," I mused thoughtfully. "This definitely won't be easy."

"What about the Jedi that was there?" Raena asked. "This light saber wasn't left by the Kashill."

"I don't know," Johan said. "Considering how much we know about them, I wouldn't rule it out."

"This isn't the work of a Jedi," Raena said. "But a Sith."
"Sith usually only work in pairs though," I responded. "A master and apprentice."

"There is the one case where a Sith used then entire Senate for his purposes however," Raena pointed out.

"Because he needed them to support his empire," I waved her suggestion off. "The Kashill hardly have the pull or power to deserve a Sith's efforts."

"What kind of Sith carries an orange light saber anyways?" Raena waved a hand at Johan and pulled the stray light saber to her hand. She ignited it and waved it around to test it. "Red is usually their thing."

"This is true," I stood up and began to pace as I racked my brains.

"Well one thing we can bet on," Johan announced from the doorway, having heard the conversation. "The help from this Jedi, or Sith, is definitely recent."

"Maybe," I took his words into my thoughts with little consideration.

"No," Johan said grabbing my attention. "The Kashill definitely weren't this well organized, or skilled at planned attacks. Not to mention, they were more forgiving, as they had never killed any innocent witnesses."

"I wish you were wrong," Raena bowed her head.

"Why?" Johan said. "Other than the obvious reasons."

"Because, then we are dealing with another Sith." She sat down with an exhausted sigh.

"Well, I truly hope you're wrong," I told Raena. "Because that means I didn't kill the master, and I only took out two apprentices."