Arya walked up to Maul's ship and found two Jedi guarding it. As soon as they spotted her, they activated their lightsabers and barred her way.

"I would move if I were you." Arya said in a monotone voice.

The two Jedi looked at each other and then back at Arya and began to advance. Arya rolled her eyes and sighed. With a small hand gesture, she pulled the lightsabers from their hands and crushed them in front of the Jedi's surprised faces.

"I did not escape your temple and seemingly every Jedi in the galaxy just to be stopped by you two." She said as she raised her hands palms-forward and pushed sending the two Jedi flying to the other side of the courtyard with a force blast.

She boarded Mauls ship and for the first time, she spoke to it.

"Ship, can you understand me?" she inquired, wondering if what Maul had told her was true and that the ship would obey her commands.

"Yes." The ship replied. Arya flinched for a second. She had not expected the ship to respond to her.

"Good." She said, recomposing herself. "Fly three blocks south of the Jedi temple, but keep a low profile."

"Understood." The ship said. To Arya's delight, the ship's ramp retracted, and the ship took off in the direction she had indicated.

In a matter of minutes, the Jedi temple flew into view. Even in the nighttime glow of the city's lights the temple looked impressive. Everything around the temple looked peaceful and serene, or at least as serene as this overpopulated and chaotic city could look to Arya. The important part was that no one looking at the temple would know what went on behind its walls tonight. The ship landed in an alley three blocks south, just as Arya had indicated.

Arya walked out and joined the never-ending throng of sleepless Coruscant citizens in the main street. When she reached the second alley, she ducked in and was greeted with an unpleasant smell that reminded her of some of the streets in King's Landing. As she walked past dirt and refuse, she began to realize that city conditions didn't change much even with thousands of years of advancement in technology.

Arya made her way halfway down the alley when she stopped at a small pile of garbage that looked as if it had recently been sifted through. Ignoring the smell, she reached inside the pile and eventually her hands felt a pack filled with hard objects. She pulled the pack out and opened it up. Her jaw dropped.

Maul had shown her holographic projections of holocrons, and even half of a broken one that he possessed, but the beauty of the blood red and soft blue lights that danced in the pack mesmerized her. Maul had told her that these holocrons belonged to some of the most powerful and ancient beings in the galaxy. It was like looking at a patchwork of knowledge that spanned thousands of years and was gathered across billions of miles, and all of it was contained in a single pack.

Arya kept her gaze on the lights of the holocrons a moment longer and then shut the pack and shouldered it.

She walked back to the ship without incident and settled onto a bench in the common area.

"Ship. Plot a course to Dathomir." She said.

"Understood." The ship replied.

Arya heard the light hum of the engines starting up and felt for only a brief moment the slight vertigo of the ship rising through the atmosphere of Coruscant and leaving the city world behind.

FIN

Maul awoke to the smell of antiseptic and the sound of medical instruments. He went to sit up but found that doing so produced an extreme burst of pain throughout his abdomen, so he merely turned his head from side to side. He saw he was in the medical wing of what was probably still the Jedi Temple, and as he lay on his bed, the memories of the last day flooded back to him.

Arya foolishly trying, and failing, to rescue him from one of the most secure places in the galaxy. His final plea for her to leave him and continue their mission after she promised to come back for him. His nearly fatal wounds. His…face.

Maul reached up with his arms, which were also bruised, and felt his face. The false face Arya had given him was gone, which meant that they now knew who he was. Feeling foolish, he realized that the face wouldn't have mattered if they had done extensive surgery on him to fix his wounds because his body, at least the non-mechanical part of his body, was covered in the same black and red tattoos that covered his face.

So, they knew he was Maul. That didn't matter much. The Jedi council already knew that he wasn't dead from their clashes with his various crime syndicates. The question was, what would the Jedi do now that they knew who they possessed?

Maul felt for his legs and realized that they had been removed from his body. They were probably too damaged to save, and him being legless was probably safer for the Jedi around him. For the first time since he had been cut in half and fallen down the reactor shaft on Naboo did Maul feel truly alone.

It was at that moment that the door to the medical bay hissed open and the most unexpected thing happened. Darth Sidious, in his guise as Supreme Chancellor Palpatine, walked into the room and straight to the foot of his bed. A group of advisors tailed him into the medical wing and eventually Maul had a small crowd staring down at him.

"This is the man who has caused the Republic and the Jedi so much distress?" Palpatine spoke to someone behind Maul. Maul turned his head to glance up and was surprised he had not noticed the two Jedi guards standing at the head of his bed.

"Yes, your excellency." One of the Jedi answered. "This is the prisoner responsible. He has an accomplice, but she managed to escape. We are on the hunt for her as we speak." There was a small bit of anger in the Jedi's voice, but Maul knew what it really was. Fear. The Jedi had thought the Sith extinct, and then he had shown up on Naboo, and they had found that the Sith were still very much alive. Now, an even more powerful force user, wielding a red blade, had helped him infiltrate their very temple and made off with a wealth of Jedi and Sith knowledge. The Jedi had not been ready for this.

"If I may be so bold, your excellency. Why are you here? We received no communication that you would be visiting the prisoner today." One of the Jedi asked.

"Leave us." Palpatine said to his advisors. They all nodded obediently and left.

Palpatine sighed, and then spoke.

"I'm here because I need this prisoner. He has information valuable to me." Palpatine looked at the Jedi, causing them to shift uncomfortably.

"We do not have the authority to allow you to speak to the prisoner without our superior's knowledge and approval. And besides, the Jedi council will be questioning the prisoner. When he supplies the answers they seek, they will relay the information to you and your council members." The first Jedi said.

"Oh, but you misunderstand me." Palpatine's voice began to crack slightly. "I probably won't be asking the same questions as your superiors."

Maul lay there uncomfortably and knew what was coming next. He knew that if he didn't warn these Jedi, they would be killed, here and now. But if he did warn them then, well, they would still die, but he would have aided in trying to protect a Jedi. He wasn't sure what to do, so all he did was mutter a single sentence.

"What brings the Dark Lord of the Sith to my bedside?"

The two Jedi looked at Maul, and then at Palpatine, and then at each other. They reached down for their lightsabers, but it was much too late. In once graceful bound, Sidious leapt over Maul's bed and swept the heads of the two Jedi guards off their shoulders with his own red lightsaber. The red blade retracted almost as fast as it had been drawn, only being activated for the split second that it was needed to decapitate the guards. Maul lay helplessly in his bed and stared at Sidious with a hatred that could melt steel.

"Ah, much better." Sidious said as he used the force to push the head and body of one of the guards away and bring a chair over for him to sit on. He sat a few feet away from Maul's bed and sighed. "Now, where to begin. Ah, yes. The girl." He looked at Maul with a hunger in his eyes. Eyes which several moments ago had been lifeless and dull and were now lit up in fractured shades of red and yellow, much like Maul's.

"What does she have to do with your plans?" Maul sneered. "You have no need for an apprentice, and she has no interest in our politics. Leave her be."

"Do my ears deceive me, or is that affection in your voice?" Sidious chuckled slightly. "No, it couldn't be. How could a Dathomirian beast such as yourself have any other emotions besides anger and hate."

Maul felt his chest tighten as the anger he felt towards Sidious erupted in his mind.

"You were a good apprentice…for a time. But you let yourself be nearly destroyed. And now you are consumed by revenge. You are weak. And after seeing your apprentice, I see now that even my own apprentice is weak. I'm afraid to admit that even I am not as powerful as her. She nearly killed me when we dueled."

Maul started for a moment. "She fought you?" he said, incredulous.

"She did. And did a fine job of it too. Although, I will say, had the force not shielded her body from my lightning, I would have killed her easily. It was almost as if the force has more control over her, than she of it. Anyways, I have been sowing seeds to make one of the most promising Jedi my new apprentice, but I can see that with her at my side, nothing will stand in the way of my grand designs."

Maul snorted. "She will never be your apprentice."

"No, I'm afraid you're right. Sidious sighed. "I offered her the chance to train under me, and she refused. But if I had some way to control her, then I could use her as a weapon."

Maul actually chuckled at that and then winced in pain. Sidious looked at him annoyed.

"Get in line." Maul said. "Don't you see that that is exactly what I was training her for? To be used as my weapon. Only I was sending her to kill you, amongst others. And if the Jedi had managed to capture her, they would have brain washed her and used her as their own weapon as well. But she knows what she is, and even if she is relatively new to force manipulation, she has enough control over her powers to be a threat to just about anyone that crosses her path. I don't think she will be anyone's apprentice anymore. And definitely not their lackey."

"Oh, I wouldn't try and control her by conventional means." Sidious said.

"What do you mean?" Maul asked, slightly apprehensive.

"I know for a fact that you would never have trained the girl, never let her get stronger than you, unless you knew for a fact that you ultimately had some way to control or destroy her if she ever stepped out of line. That is the Sith way, and I have engrained the Sith way in you long ago boy. Almost every Sith who has given too much power to their apprentice has ended up with that apprentice's lightsaber up to the hilt in their chest. So, tell me, what is it that can kill someone who the force itself creates a shield to protect?"

Maul immediately thought of the conversation he had with Mother Talzin during his first night with Arya on Dathomir. The dagger of Mortis. He looked up at Sidious and could already see that his face had betrayed his thoughts.

"Ah, so there is a way to control her." The hungry look in Sidious's eyes deepened.

"It doesn't matter. I'll never tell you what it is." Maul stared determinedly into the face of his former master and greatest enemy.

"Oh no. You'll tell me. It just depends on how much pain you wish to endure before you do." Sidious's face broke into a wicked grin.

"And you expect to break into my mind in the few moments we have left alone in this room before the Jedi realize something is wrong? You spent decades hiding right under their noses, and now you've exposed yourself to the Jedi's recording devices and will be trapped in here with me. The girl couldn't even get me out of here with all the strength she possesses." Maul held his former master's evil gaze and watched it turn to annoyance.

"The girl may possess raw power the likes of which have rarely been seen, but I have been a Sith Lord for longer than she has been alive many times over. My spies are everywhere. I have agents who know how to manipulate recording devices or even how to distract important Jedi. How do you think I got this far into the temple without members from the Jedi council realizing I was here? I am the most cunning being in the galaxy, and if you think I would walk in here without a plan to get myself out again, then you are a fool." Sidious looked with anger at his former apprentice as if Maul's doubt in his abilities were an insult. "And don't worry." Sidious continued. "You'll be coming with me. Obviously, the girl is fond of you, or she never would have tried to break in here and save you. You shall be my bait." Sidious's face drove Maul mad at how satisfied it looked.

"I can't wait when the girl gets ahold of you and rips you limb from limb." Maul growled.

"Now, now. None of that. Don't give me ideas on what to have the girl do to you once I have control of her." Sidious said. "Now, let's get you out of this temple and to a more suitable location for questioning." Sidious smiled his evil smile once more.

FIN

Arya laid back in the pilot's chair on Maul's ship. It was surprisingly comfy, and she found herself nodding off as the ship made its way to Dathomir. She wanted to start learning from the holocrons as soon as possible, but she needed to rest at least a little bit. The last day had been exhausting.

So, she threw her feet up on the control panel and leaned back, nodding off for a couple of hours as the soft blue glow of hyperspace washed over her. Eventually, the ship dropped out of hyperspace in orbit around Dathomir and the change from soft blue light to blood red light woke Arya from her restless sleep.

"Land at the training cave." Arya commanded the ship. Its response was immediate.

"Understood." The metallic female voice of the ship said.

As the ship traversed through the atmosphere and headed in the direction of the training cave, Arya walked over to a table in the common area and upended the pack full of holocrons onto the table's surface. Once again, she was awash in a mix of blue and red light. She arranged the holocrons into rows on the table running her hands over each one. These relics of knowledge so beautiful that they looked like pieces of art. She had no idea how they were made, or how they stored information, but Maul had told her that you needed to use the force to unlock them.

As Arya put the final holocron on the table, she noticed that it was only a broken half and not lit up like the others. She was intrigued to find that the holocron half looked familiar to her, but she wasn't sure why. Then it hit her. Maul had a holocron half that looked exactly like the half she now held in her hand and he kept it in the training room on this ship. He had mentioned to her in passing but had never really told her what it was.

She went to the training room and found that it was still there. She ran back to the table and held it next to the other half that Maul had gathered from the Jedi temple. They were clearly two halves of the same holocron. As she brought the two halves of the holocrons together she felt them begin to pull towards each other. In a flash they snapped together and the holocron lit up in a brilliant red glow to match the others.

Arya felt a slight bump as the ship touched down outside the forest that surrounded the training cave. She wanted to get off the ship and into the cave, but she decided to try and open this holocron first, just to see what she was dealing with.

She used the force and felt along the body of the holocron that had recently been two halves but now resembled a small, four-sided golden pyramid. She felt every curve and edge to it. Her mind delved deeper inside the device and that was when she felt it, some sort of resistance inside the device that she was certain only a for user could detect. So, she pushed against the resistance and heard an audible click from within the holocron. The top point of the pyramid opened up and a holographic projection of a very evil, and somewhat human looking creature draped in a black robe appeared above the holocron.

A raspy, sinister voice echoed not from the holocron, but in Arya's head. "Tier one of the holocron of Darth Plagueis the Wise has been activated. Advanced weaponry and armor creation available. Remain on tier one or advance to tier two?" as it said this, it opened its arms and an array of strange weaponry appeared above the hologram's head.

The hologram of who Arya now knew to be Darth Plagueis remained in an expectant pose. Advanced weaponry and armor could only help her so much. She knew that her real weapon was her force manipulation. She could come back to weapons and armor at a later time.

"Advance to tier two." Arya commanded.

The hologram of Plagueis dropped his hands to his sides and the depictions of strange weapons disappeared above his head. Plagueis raised his hands again and this time Arya had no idea what to think as images of strange looking creatures and structures formed above his head.

"Tier two activated. Genetic modification, sentient creature modification, and midichloric manipulation available. Remain on tier two or advance to tier three?" the hologram once again remained in an expectant pose.

Arya wasn't sure what any of that meant, so she sighed and said, "Advance to tier three."

Once again, the hologram put down it's hands down, but instead of raising its hands back up and displaying another array of images, it turned it's head so that it was looking directly at Arya. This unnerved her slightly and she backed away a step.

"Do you really wish to unlock the third tier in this holocron?" it said. Arya felt slightly uncomfortable as this phase of the hologram seemed more sentient than the first two tiers.

"Yes." She said lightly.

"Tier three of this holocron contains information regarding one of the biggest secrets of the Sith. Failure to complete the following phrase will lock all information in this holocron for the next one thousand years. Do you still wish to continue?

Arya wasn't sure, but she had come this far, and she was tired of waiting.

"Yes." She answered.

"Very well." The hologram of Plagueis paused for a moment, and then spoke. "Valar Morghulis."

Arya took a couple of steps back and sat on the bench at the far wall of the common area. How could that be? How could the holocron of this Sith Lord contain words of High Valyrian, a language from her own planet? She knew what phrase to answer with, but now she wasn't so sure she wanted to know the secret that tier three contained. She thought about the situation for a second, and then stood back up walked over to the hologram.

"Valar Dohaeris", she whispered.

"Tier three activated." Plagueis said. All at once the hologram of Plagueis disappeared and the top of the holocron closed.

Arya stood there confused with her heart hammering in her chest. Was that it? Nothing happened, until suddenly each side of the holocron opened up and flooded the entire chamber with a red holographic projection of the galaxy. A blinking yellow dot showed Dathomir's place in the galaxy. Another blinking yellow dot was placed far outside the galaxy in a place Maul had told her was known as Wild Space. A yellow line connected the two blinking dots.

Arya watched as the hologram began to enlarge the galaxy and followed the yellow line from Dathomir sending holographic projections of stars and planets whizzing past her. Eventually the map expanded so far that only the blinking yellow dot in Wild Space was visible. It was as if she had just swum through the whole of the galaxy and was zeroing in directly toward whatever secret that dot held.

She continued to watch as the dot grew larger and larger. Eventually, she realized that it wasn't merely a dot, but a planet. As the planet grew larger, Arya watched as land masses came into focus on the planet's surface and continued to grow larger. She had an idea of what she would see, and as her heart slammed in her chest, she saw that her suspicions were confirmed. Hovering before her in an ominous red glow was a map of Westeros and Essos. Darth Plagueis had been on her planet before.

Arya stood dumbfounded. What could this new development could possibly mean? A Sith Lord had been on her planet before. A planet which apparently housed an extremely important Sith secret. As Arya processed this new information the holographic map continued to expand so that she was brought out east, past the Narrow Sea. The map continued over the coastal cities, over slavers bay, and eventually ended just north-east of the rumored city of Asshai. The Shadow Lands. A place only spoken about in Westeros in stories used to frighten little children.

Arya sat there for a moment, absolutely stunned at this current turn of events. After a short while, she composed herself and set the ship in the direction of the holocron's coordinates.

She was going home.

END OF PART TWO