Chapter 12 - Plunge

According to Wookiepedia: "...the Battle of Baltizaar was originally placed in 39bby by Jedi vs. Sith: The Essential Guide to the Force. However, the more recent Darth Plagueis novel places the events of the battle in 33bby..."

This battle was where Komari Vosa was lost to the Bando Gora cult, but more important, that year was when she was released from the Jedi Order. I am personally going with the 39bby timetable to better fit Dooku into this story.

Something was different about his apprentice.

It was the first thought that passed through Sidious's mind as she entered the meditation chamber and knelt, placing a staff at his feet. He said nothing, simply watching her. She bore her clothes of a Sith Apprentice well, for perhaps the first time ever. She looked... comfortable in it. Not self-conscious in the slightest, or harboring any secret doubts of her path. Yet... her eyes were still sickeningly blue.

Which wasn't really a surprise.

Not from what he had been sensing from her for the last few weeks. To be frank, if he hadn't been both in the middle of an important bill he was sponsoring in the senate AND having to deal with his Master for the duration, he would have gone after his apprentice the moment he felt that sickening light emanate from her. He had never thought it could touch her again, yet it had. He remembered the first vision he had of her, that struggle between Light and Dark. Siolo Ur Manka hadn't been the Jedi pulling Tachi back towards the light, he was sure of it. The fact that he had meant Sidious hadn't been nearly as thorough as he should have been probing for his apprentice's future.

He ought to kill her.

It's the second major thought to run through his head. A Sith that would return...

But no.

She wasn't a Sith. As much as he thought her his apprentice, by definition she was merely fallen, an acolyte. She hadn't made her sacrifice, and still bore those blue eyes. She wasn't Sith, not yet. She was still sickeningly vulnerable to the Light, and would continue to be until she made her final steps and became a Lord of the Sith. He had given her instructions in how not to deal with Ur Manka, and judging by the duration of her mission, she had played a long game. She had left herself exposed to the Jedi, and had nearly been lost him. Not that he would have let her go. If it had gone on for more than another week, he would have made the time to leave and deal with the issue. Ur Manka would have been dead, and he would have punished Tachi in a way that few ever experience.

Sith did not tolerate their brethren nor their acolytes turning from the Dark.

But then, the return. He had felt the Dark come back and swallow his apprentice, plunging back down and further into it's depths than before. The sensation of -betrayed- emanating from her was intoxicating. Siolo had misjudged or done something to betray his apprentice, lost his chance, and paid the price. She had done the deed, as instructed, and came back. He had dismissed the warning his first vision of his apprentice had given him. His apprentice was not secure. She had immense potential, but could be lost to him if he wasn't careful. His arrogance in assuming she was his could have cost him his apprentice. He would not make that mistake again. She needed to be pushed deeper into the Dark Side. Thus, Sidious... wasn't sure if his apprentice should be rewarded for succeeding in her mission or punished to the point of several months of bacta immersion for touching the Light. Both could have their uses, though the second risked alienation, if resentment rose above her fear of him, now that she had turned away once she may desire to do so again...

He supposed he'd see what she had to say first before deciding.

"Your mission is complete?" he question.

"Siolo Ur Manka is dead," she spat out, viscous, but aching with betrayal as much as she tried to hide it.

He probed the bond to her silently. She felt personally betrayed, hurt, devastated, by whatever had happened. For as calm and focused as she appeared outward, inwardly she was a maelstrom of emotions. Some she should feel as a acolyte, others should be dead to her by now.

"I am curious, my apprentice," he said, taking on a warning tone that made her go still, "How you managed this... feat."

"Poison," she said.

Poison. It was such a simple solution. And yet...

"How did you get close enough to poison him? And how did he not detect it?" he questioned.

"I approached him, pretending to be a Fallen Jedi Padawan...," she began.

"Pretending?" he questioned.

She glared at him, blue eyes smoldering under her hood. "I am a Sith Apprentice, am I not?"

He flexed his fingers, lightning dancing between them in warning at her tone.

She scowled a little but backed down. "I pretended to be a Fallen Jedi Padawan seeking help returning to the Light."

"And the Jedi, being the naive fools they are, accepted," he mused before going deadly harsh, "Yet, from what I felt from you during this mission, I cannot help but wonder if you were truly pretending in your attempts."

She went silent for a long moment. "Felt?"

He scoffed. "You are MY apprentice, we are connected. Surely you are not that blind nor incompetent."

She blanked briefly, and then he felt a slight nudge in the connection between them before she sighed. "Perhaps I am, or I simply refused to accept or acknowledge it."

Hated and feared him to the point of denial. He wasn't sure if he should be amused or irritated at her allowing it to cloud her awareness.

She went quiet for a moment, he imagined she was working over the implications of what that exactly meant for her. Finally, she continued her debriefing, "His methods were more successful than either of us thought they would be. I... did not expect them to honestly work, so I just went along with everything he said while I slipped poison into his tea every morning."

He sampled for the truth. It was there, but also lacking. Withholding. Not unexpected.

But one could not so easily dance around the truth if directly asked. "And tell me, my apprentice, did you wish to turn from the Dark?"

She looked up and met his gaze steadily, before taking a route that caught him a little offguard. "Of course I did."

He blinked. For a moment he wasn't quite sure he had heard that right. But he had. So, in knowing they were connected, she did not try to lie or deny it. On one hand, he would tolerate no deception in this matter, on the other, a Sith should practice their treachery when possible, especially against one another. He was thus curious how exactly she planned to weasel out of getting punished, he couldn't fathom how she'd manage it. "Did you now?"

She grew derisive. "You, someone who has only ever touched the dark, wouldn't understand."

He narrowed his eyes, pulling back the urge to electrocute her to near death. There was a time for punishment, and a time to hold it back. Now was the latter. "Then perhaps, my apprentice, you should explain."

"It abandoned me," she said, and he heard the yearning ache in her voice, "So when I touched it again, I wanted to hold onto it and never let it go. To feel that warmth that had been denied to me, to remember what it had been like, to possess it. But you know what, my Master? The entire time I had 'turned away' if you want to even call it that, I kept poisoning him. Every. Single. Day. Despite having touched the light."

He raked through her mind, making her hiss in pain, and was rather surprised to find she was telling the truth. Though there was something about it... something withheld but he could not figure out what. He lingered on her choice of words, of possessing the light. What a curious turn of phrase. And dangerous if he understood exactly what she was saying. "Be mindful, my apprentice, that light and warmth can burn if you hold it to close."

She went silent for a moment before softly saying, "It did, in the end."

Her eyes grew ice cold, the Dark Side rippling around her. "But when it did, I snuffed it out."

He supposed that was the crux of the matter, she had finished her objective and returned to him when she could have stayed in the Light and returned to the Jedi. She could not get off free however...

"And as such," she continued, voice rising, as if to dare him to refute her, "I deserve to be rewarded."

He stared at her, masking his astonishment and disbelief. Such ridiculous audacity... she dared to DEMAND of him? After her near failure? She should be kissing his boots and begging for mercy, not that he would give it nor respect the act, quite the opposite. Some part of him was impressed by her boldness, on the other hand, he was her Master, and oh, he was going to make her suffer...

"I want you to teach me how to use that Lightning of yours," she said.

And then he paused his thoughts, and slowly, a cruel smile played across his face. Perhaps he could have both then, reward and punish her. Pull her further into the Dark Side while punishing her for her venture into the Light.

"Force Lightning," he mused, and oh was it good for his plans that she wanted to learn that ability, "Requires a hate I'm not sure you yet posses."

"You'll find, Master," she sneered, actually dared to so openly sneer at him, she had grown even more insolent, "That I have plenty of hate. You just need to show me how to properly cultivate it."

Cultivate.

Under his hood, he raised an eyebrow. Perhaps she understood more than he thought. He had allowed her to be out from under his watchful gaze for to long while out with the Black Sun. He needed to keep her where he could see and observe her, see what changes she had gone through for himself. She was bolder now, and with that thought he realized what phase she was going through. Rebelliousness, not just in the later teenage years, but as a Sith Apprentice. He had never had the chance to experience it with Maul, and he had not been a teenager when he first began his apprenticeship to his Master. Not that he truly needed to be to buck at Plaguies's chains. Still did even.

Oh yes, he needed to keep a very close eye on his apprentice to make sure she didn't step out of line, or risk their plans. For at least another few years until she matured.

"Force Lightning," he began slowly, channeling his energy before blasting her to the ground, but she did not scream or cry out in pain, not this time, she merely hissed and ground her teeth, she was finally learning, "Requires two things in immense amounts, hate and focus..."

Master Yoda stood silently at the edge of Siolo Ur Manka's home area. At his side stood Master Windu and Master Dooku. The first he had brought to observe this 'Iris', to see if Vapaad was the path she would need to walk to balance her darker side and reintegrate into the Order. Needless to even mention about seeing what shatterpoints existed around the child. The second, was to have someone of a more critical opinion. Yoda was hopeful for this lost child, but he did not want that to blind him. So he had his old Padawan come from his latest mission to observe and poke and prod and question, to see if this child was all that she seemed. Among other reasons he wanted his Padawan close.

He Ignored that Iris obviously wasn't what she seemed. He had checked the archives, the only Iris's in the Jedi Order were either long dead, or currently a four year old initiate in the creche. So, as Ur Manka had guessed, the name was false, which perhaps threw the entire situation into question, or it could be taken as a defensive mechanism, of fear towards the Jedi. It saddened him, that they would be feared by one of their own, fallen or not.

But it was all a moot point.

Because at the center of the clearing that marked Ur Manka's home, were the remains of a Jedi Funeral Pyre. It's embers had smoldered out days ago, all traces of Ur Manka gone. This 'Iris' was gone as well. The only signs of her were lingering traces of her presence in the Force, yet... they were cloudy, hard to see and identify. He walked forward slowly and bowed his head at the edge of the pyre, sighing softly.

"So, we came here chasing ghosts then," mused Dooku.

"This 'Iris' couldn't have been gone for more than a few days," said Mace, looking around slowly, "Perhaps we can pick up her trail, or she might have left evidence we can use to identify who she really is."

"You would think so my old friend," said Dooku, "But I can detect little, and looking around..."

He circled the area. "There is not a trace. Not a scrape of cloth, not a thread of hair. I doubt we will find anything inside either. She purposefully left no evidence, and we know next to nothing about this Fallen Padawan, as Ur Manka failed to disclose anything aside from gender and a false name, not even her race. We have not a clue where she might go. She has had days to put distance between here and wherever she has flown off to. We will not find her unless she wants to be found."

Yoda silently agreed with him, but hobbled into Ur Manka's home anyway, wishing to see how his old friend had lived his retirement. He silently admired the architecture, the decades of hard work. He took a round of the home, his fellow Masters following behind and observing. He found, as Dooku had suggested, nothing about this 'Iris'. But...

In the kitchen area...

He felt where Ur Manka had died.

He felt the loss, the hurt, the pain, and a sense of... betrayal. But not from Ur Manka. His old friend did not feel like he had been betrayed... curious.

"Sad he felt, grieving," mused Yoda, placing a hand on the floor and closing his eyes, "Failed, felt he did, in his last moments."

"I feel it to," said Mace, eyes furrowed, "The other presence, the Fallen Padawan, felt betrayed...? Hurt? I feel a darkening here. I'm not sure I can make sense of what happened with merely echoes."

"Hmmm," mused Dooku, "If Siolo is truly to be believed on how far he and the Padawan came together, as one who is or was dark it would be in her nature to be... possessive of him. There is no death, there is the Force, that is not something someone Fallen would accept. For as little as it makes sense to us, perhaps she viewed his illness, his death, as a betrayal, of him leaving and abandoning her."

"Mmmm," murmured Yoda, prodding the Force, getting little in response but the same muddled clouding whenever he tried to make sense of the darkness slowly spreading through the Galaxy, he did not know if that was the correct conclusion or not, "Feared that, Ur Manka did, not in those terms, but the same in the end, it was."

Dooku's insight in the matters of the Dark Side from his studies and missions, while thought provoking, sometimes worried Yoda. He brushed off his concern and released it into the Force. "Find this Iris, we cannot. Trust in the Force, we will. If meant to find her way back to us, she will."

Yoda pressed again one last time, not for the Darkness, but the Light, and felt... something. It was still clouded by the dark, while their was a faint air of familiarity about it, he could not identify who this 'Iris' truly was, but... she felt as much sorrow as Ur Manka did, as much grief, loss of faith, and pain, so much pain. Ur Manka's passing had hurt the child in one way or another, of that Yoda did not doubt. She was lost again to the Dark Side, and it grieved Yoda to realize that. To have someone lost come so close to returning, to defy an impossibility, only to lose the chance.

He walked outside and grasped his glimmer stick with both hands, staring out at the pyre. "Speak well for her, it does, that give him the pyre, she did. Give it to him, she would not, if cared, she did not."

"It could be to hide evidence," pointed out Master Windu.

Yoda nodded in acknowledgement. "Mmm."

Windu frowned and glanced around slowly, and Yoda could feel him probing the air, not as the rest of them would, but for shatterpoints. The man blinked, pained, and reached up to rub his eyes as if blinded. He shook his head and looked... worried.

"What happened here was days ago," murmured Windu, "A shatterpoint should not linger. Yet the fault lines do, at such a size, slowly receding. If this is what remains... how massive was the shatterpoint when Siolo was trying to save the Padawan?"

Yoda's ears twitched, waiting patiently.

Windu pursed his lips. "What happened here was much more than the struggle for the soul of a single Padawan. What exactly this means, I am not sure."

"Touch many lives, one person can," said Yoda slowly, eyes washing over the greenery around them, "Good or ill, light or dark. Consequences her actions have, spread across the Force it will."

"Perhaps," said Dooku, "Or perhaps it had nothing to do exactly with her. Let us not forget what Ur Manka said she told him, of a powerful Darksider that killed her Jedi Master and abducted her. I won't pretend to understand a shatterpoint as you do Master Windu, but, perhaps the real opportunity lost here was her leading us to this beast. I am far more concerned about the Darksider than I am the Fallen Padawan."

Yoda tilted his head in thought, slowly nodding. "A point made, you have. Much danger and damage, could this unknown threat cause."

"Master," said Dooku, kneeling down next to him despite his own old age, "Do you wish me to investigate this matter?"

Yoda blinked and turned his head. "Find this threat, think you can?"

"Letting it walk unchallenged is foolish," said Dooku with disapproval, not at all actually acknowledging the question, "Jedi go missing each year; some with explanation, some not. How many, pray tell, has this Darksider potentially killed? How many assumed dead, were instead subjected to torture and turned? Let my purpose become it's end, and let it be my legacy."

Yoda leveled his gaze on his old apprentice before 'thwacking' him with his glimmer stick. "Legacy hmm? A legacy you have, if visit your Padawan and Grand Padawan, you would. Refuse missions from the Council, scouring the Outer Rim, chasing shadows, isolated you have been. In a rut, Vosa's fate has left you, that Galidraan has left you."

Dooku's face darkened. "Is this why you really called me here? How I give my service to the Order is none of your..."

Yoda poked his chest, not harshly, but firmly. "My Padawan, you are. Concerned, I am. Allow you to seek out this Darksider, I will not, unless help yourself first, you will. Lose you to this threat, I will not."

Dooku scowled and stood. "I am not some weak Padawan, but a fully trained and experienced Jedi Master. I have no concern of this threat torturing me into the dark."

Yoda slowly shook his head, it was not Dooku being 'tortured' to the dark that worried him. His old padawan was setting himself up for failure. Yoda had seen it many times over his nine hundred years of life. "Spoken, I have."

Dooku glared. "So is this what it takes to have our fallen or missing Jedi investigated? Something you use as a means to and ends to..."

"Dooku," said Winda sharply, briefly cutting him off.

Yoda's ears drooped a bit, but acknowledged his words. "Spread thin, to thin, the Jedi have been. Investigate thoroughly, and with time, many of our lost or killed have not been. Agree with you, I do."

Dooku's hostility faded, looking actually surprised that his words were headed.

"Listen I do, Dooku," said Yoda softly, "But only one person, I am, though Grandmaster I may be. Listen to the council, to the senate, I must."

Dooku huffed. "Maybe if we weren't so reliant on the pocket books of the Senate, we could dictate our own efforts better."

Yoda gave him an indulgent smile. "That view, made you have, many times."

They shared a brief chuckle before Yoda flicked his ears and sighed softly, "Grant you this mission to investigate our fallen, I will, see your old Padawan and his Grandpadawan first, you will. In their own rut, they have been. Perhaps help one another, you will."

Dooku sighed. "Very well, but I make no promises. Qui-Gon and I... did not last part on the best of terms."

"Hmph, not my fault, that is, hmm?" said Yoda, whacking Dooku's shin, earning a scowl, "Come, come, leave Ur Manka to his rest, we will."

Yoda hobbled a bit, with Dooku at his heels, before pausing, turning to look at their wayward companion. "Master Windu?"

The Korun Master stood there, his frown still heavy on his face as he stared at the pyre's remains. He slowly shook his head and walked after them. Sometimes Yoda wondered just what it was his fellow Master could see. Other times, he did not envy the man. To many burdens and roles the Force already placed on them, and despite how they all rose to the responsibility, they still weighed heavily. Out of the three of them here, perhaps only Master Windu came close to truly understanding the depths of the consequences, whatever they may be...

Author's Note:

Does anyone know the specific year Obi-Wan went to Mandalore for the mission to protect Satine as a Padawan?

And forgive me if I butcher shatterpoints or take them up a notch more than cannon. Considering that Sidious could have been both robbed of an apprentice, and had the Sith revealed here, it could have been an absolutely massive event that changed the fate of this Galaxy.

Review Responses:

Le0nidas: Thanks. I have entertained the idea of trying to become an author in the past, but never took the final step to send out my manuscript to a publisher. To much of a hassle when I can just play video games and read/write fanfiction ^_^.

Nerdman3000: Siri may or may not come back, but even then, it's not just about returning, but staying. Force is to clouded for Yoda to get a read of Siri, but, (spoiler?) Siolo and what happened here will come up in the aftermath of the Phantom Menace. And yeah, just PM me.

AlphaF34R: 3 thanks. I'm curious, what did you think I was going for?

Shadow Walker of Fire: Thanks.

IamOneWithTheForce: Pff, this was hardly a long wait compared to what some of my stories have suffered, and she would have, sorry if that doesn't seem realistic, Author's Prerogative.