Arya walked up to the Library of the Republic and looked up. The building was insanely massive. According to Maul, this building held the whole of the knowledge of the Galactic Republic. She got a sudden bought of vertigo and had to look back down until her head stopped spinning. The library made the Red Keep look like a tiny hut. Massive columns lined a giant stone staircase that lead up the main entrance. Arya made her way up to the doors leading inside and paused, the time had finally come.

As she walked in, she thought about a decision she had made before her and Maul had left Dathomir. She would not kill anyone today. Not unless it was absolutely necessary for survival. That was something that had always bothered her when she had trained at the temple of the Many-Faced God. They would kill anyone for the right price even if that person did not really deserve death. She had killed her fair share of people, but almost all had deserved death in one form or another. So, now she would only kill if she herself was about to be killed, or if she knew that her target was worthy to be pierced on the end of her blade. She figured Maul wouldn't approve, but he wasn't with her at the moment. Besides, she was pretty sure she could create an affective distraction without killing anyone.

With her heart pounding in her chest she walked to the center of the massive entrance chamber. It was dome-shaped and had a rear entrance that led to shelves and shelves worth of knowledge. The Measters at the Citadel would have a field day here. she thought. She noticed a large statue of the symbol for the Galactic Republic that stood in the middle of the chamber. She stared up at the statue for a moment and then looked around. Humans and alien creatures alike walked around going about their daily business and showing her little interest. A passing few looked up and nodded respectfully to her.

She took a deep breath and jumped unnaturally high to land on top of the statue. That got the attention of many of the library's visitors who pointed and gasped as Arya surveyed the crowd above. She held her hand out to her side and Belerian's Breath jumped into her palm. Arya took one last look at the crowd in a peaceful state and then activated her lightsaber. All hell broke loose.

Most of the crowd screamed and started running for the exits. Others were using communication devices to call for help. Arya spun to get a good look of the entire chamber, and as she did, she noticed several blades of green and blue spring into view. Apparently, there had already been a few Jedi here. The Jedi ran towards her as everyone else ran away. They finally pulled up short and Arya was able to get a good look at their faces. None of them had been shown to her by Maul in their preparation for today. That most likely meant they were not a threat to her.

"Sith!" a large male Jedi spat at her. "Come with us peacefully or we will be forced to cut you down."

"I am not Sith, and I will not come with you." Arya said calmly. "What have I done wrong?" She found everyone's reaction to her red lightsaber genuinely interesting. Maul was right. The Sith had a reputation laced with terror.

"Your red lightsaber says enough about who you are. Now come with us quietly or we will bring you in by force." A young female Jedi said.

"No." Arya said as she jumped down off of the statue to stand in front of the Jedi. "And I do not wish to fight anyone. I have no quarrel with any of you. Now leave me be." She turned to walk farther into the library, but one of the male Jedi jumped over her and landed in front to block her way. His blade was pointed directly at her heart.

Arya barely looked amused. "I must give you warning. If you intend to fight me, you will lose."

"Very well. We will see about that." The female Jedi said.

All told, there were five Jedi. Two males and three females. All of them had just recently gained the rank of Master from the Jedi academy after years of intensive training that began when they were children. To them, one versus five were very good odds, and the swell of pride from their recent promotion to Master gave them a feeling of invincibility. Unfortunately, there was no way for them to know that Arya was different, and much, much more powerful.

All five jumped at Arya simultaneously with precise strikes from their lightsabers. Arya danced among them as if she had practiced these moves all her life. She blocked two of the lightsabers with her own using blindingly quick strikes. The other three missed her by mere inches. She had sent a burst of force energy from her palm to disrupt the trajectory of their blades.

Arya jumped high over the circle of Jedi, so she would not be surrounded by them. As she flew though the air, she reached behind her and used the force to pull the large metal statue down on top of the three Jedi closest to it. Two of them were able to jump out of the way, but one of the female Jedi was not as quick and her legs were caught under the weight of the statue. As Arya headed toward the ground, she could sense that a male and female Jedi were following her arc through the air and knew they would strike as soon as she landed. She landed with her back to them and could feel the swift slashes heading straight for the back of her neck. She did not have enough time to turn around, but it didn't matter. She was able to bring her sword hand behind her and block their flurry of strikes without looking. She spun around and was greeted with shocked expressions from the two Jedi who had attacked, leaving her a slight opening. They should know better than to give an opponent such a large window to strike Arya thought. Arya slashed the female Jedi across his shoulder and ducked under a blow from the male Jedi. With an exact swing she cut the sword hand from the male Jedi as it passed over her head. The Jedi screamed in pain and held his wrist where his hand had been. Arya place her hand on his chest and sent out a small burst of force energy causing him to fly across the chamber and crash into the far wall knocking him unconscious. The female Jedi watched all of this with an expression of horror while holding her injured shoulder. Sensing she was outmatched, she jumped away from Arya to join the other two Jedi who were using the force in an attempt to lift the statue off of the Jedi who's legs had been crushed.

Arya walked over to the three remaining Jedi who were still standing. As she walked, she noted the lack of blood from her strikes. It was strange to her that you could cut off entire appendages and hardly see any blood from the wounds. The whole thing made the fight seem cleaner and less visceral than the fights she had been in back in Westeros.

She reached her hand to the side and the lightsaber from the Jedi whose hand was severed zipped across the room into her non-sword hand. She held her hand out and let the lightsaber float just above her open palm.

"I told you I do not want to fight." Arya said. "And if I really wanted to, I would not need a lightsaber to defeat you." As she said this, the lightsaber floating above her palm began to collapse in on itself as Arya used the force to crush it. The kyber crystal inside exploded which would have sent pieces of shrapnel ripping through Arya's body. But the pieces of lightsaber and the explosion from the kyber crystal were froze in mid-air above Arya's palm. It was as if time had stopped in that exact location. Eventually, the explosion was too hot, and the pieces of metal began to glow orange. Arya simply let the entire thing collapse into a ball of molten metal. She looked at the two Jedi still trying to lift the statue and felt pity for them. She let the molten wreck of a lightsaber fall to the floor and flicked two fingers upward lifting the statue off the wounded Jedi and sending it crashing into the back of the entrance chamber. The Jedi stared in awe of Arya's raw strength for a moment and then ran over to their friend. She wasn't dead, but her legs were a mangles mess. The Jedi who Arya had slashed across the shoulder kept an eye on her with her lightsaber drawn, her other arm dangled at her side.

The Jedi with the crushed legs moaned in pain. Her two allies crouched over her in a protective manner.

"I would get her to a medical droid if I were you." Arya said.

One of the Jedi looked up and growled at Arya. "Why!?" she screamed.

"You attacked me." Arya said. "I told you I was not a Sith, and I told you I did not want to fight."

"Let us leave this place and alert the Jedi Counsel." One of them said.

"That won't be necessary." Arya said. "If they weren't on their way here already, they will be now." With that, she revealed her presence to them, something she had been hiding since her and Maul had left for Coruscant.

All three Jedi grabbed their chests and staggered as the disturbance that Arya's presence left in the force hit them. Eventually, they regained their composure.

"Who are you?" one of the Jedi grunted through the exertion he was feeling from Arya's presence.

"I'm no one...for now." Arya responded.

Just then, the doors behind Arya burst open and she turned to see a dozen or so guards rush into the chamber. Each one trained a blaster on her position and sent a volley of blaster bolts shooting in her direction. Maul had taught her what to do next. She blocked each bolt with precision and deflected them back at the guards. In a matter of seconds, half the guards were holding their shooting hands in pain where Arya had directed their blaster bolts to strike. Arya looked back for a brief moment and saw that the Jedi were escaping from the chamber with their wounded while she was distracted with the guards.

In that moment of distraction, a blaster bold grazed her abdomen causing her side to light up in a searing pain. Arya yelled and stumbled to the ground. She looked back at the guards who seemed to be encouraged from the recent turn of events. She stood up and screamed at them with one hand holding her side and her other hand held out in front of her. As the blaster bolts got close to Arya, they would suddenly curve around her. It was as if she had formed a bubble of protective force energy around herself. Finally, Arya used the force to rip the blasters from the guard's hands and shattered them into pieces. Then she sent out stronger shockwave of force energy flinging the guards bodies into the wall behind them like rag dolls.

And just like that, she was alone. Incapacitated bodies littered the entrance to the library, but none of them stirred. Panting, and holding her injured side, Arya turned on her heel and walked farther into the building.

FIN

Maul could not believe what had just happened. He had made his way to the Jedi temple, using the five spires of the temple as a guide through the busy city streets. Then he had walked up the steps and straight through the front entrance. No one had given him so much as a second glance. The mask Arya had given him was the most effective form of disguise he had ever seen, and it seemed to be paying dividends already.

The whole situation felt strange to Maul. Not that it was strange to be deep in an enemy stronghold. He had done his fair share of sneaking around and infiltrating enemy lairs. What was strange to Maul was that he was so far out in the open, and he felt exposed, even if no one noticed him.

He walked the path he had mapped out in his head and hoped that his contacts had given him good blueprints of the temple. Eventually he found a small side corridor with no one in it and ducked inside. Maul watched from the corridor as young Jedi apprentices walked back and forth going about their business. He watched as a few familiar faces walked past as well; most noticeably Mace Windu and Kit Fisto. Maul hoped that Arya would not come face to face with those two. They had a reputation of being some of the most skilled lightsaber dualists in the galaxy.

Maul waited for a short time. What is taking the girl so long? He thought. He was about to leave his hiding spot and exit the temple to see what had become of his apprentice, and then he felt it. The strong disturbance in the force that he had felt many times before when training with Arya. She must have revealed her presence in the Library of the Republic. Maul watched with amusement as Jedi both young and old grabbed their chests and staggered from the disturbance. Well, that will clean this temple out quickly. he thought. He watched with a grin on his face as the serene scene in the temple became one of chaos. Jedi masters ushered their young padawans out of the temple telling them to go home. He continued to watch as dozens of Jedi ran for the temple's exit in the direction of the library. Eventually, he was alone.

That was almost too easy. he thought. As he slipped out of his hiding place, he hoped that Arya would be smart with her distraction and not get herself captured or killed. He had trained her as best he could, and she was extremely powerful, but he just watched dozens of the best fighters in the galaxy run towards her position. He hoped that it wasn't a mistake to put her thought a test this tough so early. He would need to be quick.

He followed the appropriate corridors and lifts mapped out in his head and eventually came to the circular corridor that wrapped around the holocron vault. He put on a small set of goggles and through the lenses he was able to see small beams of invisible light that moved around the corridor. If any one of the beams hit him, it would set off an alarm and bring many of the Jedi running back towards the temple. His informants had done well providing accurate information of the vault's defenses. Apparently, there had been a theft in the vault recently and security measures had been ramped up considerably.

He pulled out two small handles that had strong electro magnets on the ends of them. Using just his arms, he began to move his large and muscular frame up and along the wall of the corridor. As beams got close to him, he maneuvered his body around them. It was a feat of pure strength, but Maul had kept his body in impeccable shape and he was able to reach the section of wall above the vault entrance with minimal effort. Unfortunately, on either side of the vault door were two Jedi guards. Most likely they were told not to leave their post under any circumstance. Unfortunately for them, they were an obstacle to Maul and would need to be dealt with.

Maul positioned himself directly above and between the Jedi with his feet dangling down. He counted to three and let go, pushing off one of the handles slightly to send his body spinning. As he dropped between the guards, he activated the two single-blade lightsabers he had brought with him, one blue and one green, and let his spinning momentum carry the blades through both guard's necks. Maul's surprise attack was too fast to react to, even for a Jedi, and with a series of thuds, the heads and bodies of each guard hit the ground. He had brought a green and a blue lightsaber so that when the Jedi masters reviewed the recordings, they would not immediately think that he was a Sith, or former Sith. It would also help to create unease and mistrust amongst their ranks.

Maul stared at the door for a moment and then got to work. He delved into the door's inner workings with his mind and found a switch inside the near wall that could only be flipped by a force adept. The large door dilated open to reveal a tunnel-like passage with a matching door at the end. He waked through the passage and flipped the switch on the other door as well causing it to expand open and reveal a dark chamber beyond. Maul took a few steps in and was immediately awash in a soft blue light. He was finally here. Here, where thousands and thousands of years of some of the deepest darkest secrets in the galaxy resided. An enormous pillar stood in the middle of the dark cavernous room. The only light was the blue light emitted from the holocrons themselves which were tucked away in small recessed chambers in the central pillar as well as along sections of the surrounding vault walls. Maul pulled out a small pack that he had brought with him and began to fill it up with the holocrons he had come to acquire. There were several Jedi holocrons that he was particularly interested in, and eventually he located those residing on the central pillar. After obtaining the few Jedi holocrons he wanted, Maul turned his attention to the main reason he had broken into this vault. For the Jedi didn't keep only Jedi holocrons in the vault. They kept acquired Sith holocrons in the vault as well. Maul found it curious that the Jedi kept the Sith holocrons they managed to obtain. If Sith holocrons really housed deep forgotten secrets of the dark side of the force, then why did the Jedi not simply destroy them? Why keep them? Maul already knew the answer to that. They kept them because there was power in those Sith holocrons. Power that the Jedi could possibly use if ever they needed. This vault stank of hypocrisy.

Maul walked around the outside wall and eventually came to the spot that his informants had told him about. That bit of information had been the hardest to obtain. Somewhere hidden in this vault was a second vault where the Sith holocrons were stored. Where this second vault resided was one of the Jedi Counsel's deepest darkest secrets. But his informants had come through for him. He touched the flat surface of the wall and couldn't feel anything of note. But like the door to get into the vault, this piece of wall held a switch inside. Maul felt for it with his mind and almost missed it. It was so small and delicate that no one would accidentally find it unless they knew exactly where to look. Maul flipped it. The section of wall in front of him recessed and slid to the side bathing Maul in a contrasting red glow. There they were. Generations of Sith force knowledge and weapon advancements sitting piled on top of each other ripe for the taking. Maul wanted to take them all, but he didn't have the time nor the means to bring all of them with him. Besides, he had specific descriptions of the ones he sought, and those should be enough. Once he and Arya rose to power, they would be able to come back here and plunder the vault's secrets without the possibility of being interrupted. So, he quickly slipped the ones he wanted into the pack he had brought with him. As he picked each one up, he thought about the fact that he was holding an item that had once been held by some of the most powerful Sith Lords ever known.

"No one besides the Jedi Council members are allowed in this room." A voice behind Maul said. Maul stiffened and turned around slowly. He knew that voice. It belonged to a Jedi he had obsessed over ever since that fateful day on Naboo. Obi-Wan Kenobi.

Maul dropped his pack and growled at him activating both of his lightsabers. Kenobi activated his own lightsaber and the two of them began to circle each other.

"I don't recognize you, but there is something familiar about your presence." Kenobi seemed slightly troubled. "I see your green and blue lightsabers, but it is easy to tell that you are not a Jedi."

Maul realized that he was still wearing the mask he had gotten from Arya. Kenobi wouldn't know who he was. Every muscle in his body stained against itself to keep him from springing at the Jedi knight who had ruined his life. He strained so hard against his own want to kill Kenobi that he began to see red. Eventually he calmed himself and remembered the job he had come here to do. One day he would kill Kenobi, but that day would have to wait. He began to circle so that he was near the central pillar of holocrons and closer to the vault doors than Kenobi.

"Who are you?" Kenobi asked, still puzzled.

"I'm no one." Maul said, using a phrase he had heard Arya mutter before. He found he liked it. It sounded ominous, and it was vague and confusing enough to break Kenobi's concentration for a millisecond.

Maul took his green lightsaber and shoved the blade into the base of the holocron pillar up to the hilt. The pillar started to melt and the closest holocrons began to pop and spark as they submitted to the heat of the blade. Kenobi ran towards the lightsaber to pull it out and save the precious Jedi knowledge that was currently being destroyed. With Kenobi was distracted, Maul rushed towards the exit and used the force to pull his pack to him. As he ran through the passage and out the doorway, he flipped the switches with his mind to close the doors and then used the force to pull a section of the ceiling down in front of the doors to block them. Hopefully that would delay Kenobi for awhile. There was no time to avoid the beams in the hallway, so Maul just ran as hard as he could as alarms began to sound through the temple.