Shaak Ti, once she snapped out of her shocked trance, herded the children out of the training room down to the Halls of Healing. She helped the Jedi who were manning the ward settle the Younglings, then sat on a bench next to the wall, not moving, not speaking. She held herself as if she was chilled, but it was not the cool temperature of the ward that gave her goosebumps. The cold was coming from inside her.

She had felt it since she had watched the children freeze and fall to the floor. It spread from her head, all the way to the tips of her montrals to the tips of her toes. Her hands were shaking, even as she clenched her arms and held them close to her body. As the Younglings were attended to, she seemed to retreat into her mind, and slowly she lost the ability to string together a coherent sentence in her head.

One of the Jedi on duty, Sko Denver, had finished taking the pulses and the oxygen levels of the last of the Younglings when he noticed Shaak Ti sitting in the corner. He nearly fell over when he saw how pale she had become. His expert eye saw Shaak shaking immediately, and he went over to talk to her.

"Master Ti, Master, would you look up at me for a second?"

Shaak looked up at him but did not say anything. Sko stared into her eyes, looking for tell-tale signs that something was wrong.

"Master, can you tell me what happened? The Younglings do not seem to be injured or hurt in any way. Master?"

She looked around as if searching for the words to say. She saw Petro, lying on one of the beds, talking to another Jedi, and she pointed at him. "Vision." She said. "Vision."

"A vision? Did he have a vision?"

"All."

"All of them?" Sko looked concerned, but he no longer was as worried for the Younglings as he was for her. He hadn't talked with Master Ti often, but he knew that she was capable of saying sentences that contained more than one word.

"Memory." She suddenly seemed very agitated and scared. "Memory. Memory!" She grabbed Sko's shoulders and shook them as if she was trying to tell him something important.

Sko took note of what she said, but he needed to take care of her first. "Come, Master, you need to lie down." He led her to another bed, all the while, Shaak was repeating the word 'memory', mixed with a look of sorrow, and fear.

He laid her down and instructed that her vitals be taken. He then turned to the Younglings. Vision, all, and memory. That's all he had to go on from Shaak.

"Do you remember exactly what you were doing before you fell unconscious?" He asked them collectively.

They turned to each other, and Zatt spoke up first. "We were...meditating, with Master Ti."

"And do you remember what you saw, in your vision?"

Zatt lifted a finger, opening his mouth to speak, but no sound came out. He lowered it, then whispered a soft and broken "No."

Sko took a sharp breath. Whatever Shaak Ti was trying to say was right. "None of you remember it?"

"We should," Katooni said. "We've been talking about it all week," she looked to her friends. "Haven't we?"

"We were," said Byph, "but every time I try to think about it, all I can remember is..."

"Dark," Gungi growled, filling in the blank. "But that's never happened before."

Ganodi fidgeted with his hands. "It was important. We had figured out something important."

"If it was important," questioned Sko, "then why did you forget it so much?"

"VEIL!" Shaak yelled suddenly from across the ward. "VEIL!"

The other Jedi tried to restrain her and talked her into calming down, but the Younglings looked worried.

"Don't worry," Sko reassured them. "We are going to take care of her. She'll be back in no time."

"It's not that," Katooni shook her head. "I think that whatever made us forget our...our vision might have done something to Master Ti, too."

Sko looked at her but didn't speak. Petro did. "What makes you say that?"

"Well, we don't remember what happened, and Master Ti was the only person in the room with us when we woke up," Zatt mused. "Maybe there's a connection."

"Master Denver," Ganodi said, reading the tag on his robe, "can we please speak with Master Ti? Just for a minute, then we will go back on our beds?"

Sko was normally very strict about bed protocol, but he could tell that something important was at hand here. Something more important than protocol. He nodded.

The six Younglings went to Shaak Ti's bedside and she stared at them, each individually, in turn, then murmured, "Danger."

They nodded, sensing that whatever had happened to them was indeed dangerous. Byph, who seemed to recognize that she needed things short, simple, and to the point in order to understand, rested a hand on her and said softly, "Help?"

Shaak looked at him, then stared off into space. Byph looked at his friends, unsure of what to do next, before Shaak muttered, almost silently, "Dume. Dume."

They all turned to each other. Ganodi mouthed 'Caleb' to the others, and they nodded in understanding. He could help them remember, later.

"Veil," Shaak said again, and the Younglings turned back to her.

Shaak had talked about the veil before, so they did recollect something about a veil. They nodded, showing that they understood that it was important. Shaak then moved on.

"Secret," she whispered to them. "Secret, secret."

This puzzled the Younglings. "Who?" Asked Byph.

"Danger. Secret."

This was a bit frustrating. She had already said those words, but not together. Did they still mean the same thing, or was there a new meaning now?

Byph tried something else. "Where?"

Shaak looked around, as if trying to find the danger with her eyes. She must have failed, though, because she pulled her knees to her chest and buried her face. She began rocking back and forth, and Sko rested a hand on Zatt, who was closest to him.

"I don't think she can answer anymore. You need to return to your beds now."

The Younglings nodded and climbed back into their bunks reluctantly. The other Jedi began calming Shaak down again when the doors slid open and Luminara came flying through them.

"Where is Master Ti?" She asked, and Sko pointed to the Jedi Master on the opposite end of the ward. She went and sat beside Shaak, who hadn't noticed that she had walked in.

She's gone insane, Luminara realized instantly. What did this to her?

"Hey," she rested a hand on Shaak's shoulder. "Hey, look at me."

Shaak stopped rocking when she heard Luminara's voice. She peeked out at her, and when she saw her green eyes looking on at her, she sat up and gasped quietly.

"Lumi?" She asked, her voice breaking. "Lumi?"

"Yeah," Luminara said, fighting back tears. "Yeah, Tia, it's me."

"Lumi," Shaak said, nearly crying, and she leaned over and hugged her friend. Luminara held on to her tightly and prayed that Shaak wouldn't ever forget her, even if she had lost her mind.

"Scared," she told Luminara. "Dark, Lumi, dark."

Luminara didn't know it, but Sko noted that that was her longest sentence yet.

"I know, Tia," she said, rubbing Shaak's back. "I know, and it's going to be okay."

"Are we just going to sit back and let this happen?" Mace Windu asked, half an hour later.

Word had spread fast, and everyone now knew that something (although what had remained hidden) had happened to six Younglings, and now Master Shaak Ti had lost her mind. All lessons had been canceled and meditation was forbidden until further notice.

Obi-Wan paced around his chair. "A member of our Council has been driven to insanity, I doubt anyone wants to 'let that happen'."

"So what are we going to do about it?" Mace asked, very frustrated. "We've already forbidden meditation, but that doesn't help Master Ti."

"If it was meditation and visions that were the issue," Luminara pointed out, "then half of our Order would also have experience memory loss or insanity. This is strictly between the six Younglings and Shaak Ti. Forbidding meditation will solve nothing."

"I don't hear you offering a solution," Mace shot back.

"The rest of the Order is worried, they want answers," Depa pointed out. "Unless we come up with some, Jedi will lose faith in us."

Ki-Adi Mundi sat forward in his chair. "How are we supposed to come up with answers when the only people who can tell us anything are currently in the Halls of Healing and are victim to insanity and memory loss?"

"We finally had the upper hand with those tips," Mace stood up and looked out the window, "and then this happens. If I didn't know better..."

"What?" Asked Kenobi. "Then what would you assume?"

"Then I'd say that we need to take some action," he covered quickly, hiding his true thoughts. "The Sith and the Inquisitor have been creating issues for the past two months. Is it not time that we do something about them?"

Kenobi stroked his beard. "It is the Inquisitor that started all of this, no?"

"Oh, not this again," groaned Depa. "I thought we ended this conversation."

Kit Fisto burst into the argument. "Only a Jedi would know things that the Inquisitor has shown to know. I think it is time we apprehend Ahsoka Tano once and for all, and end this Darkness!"

Adi Gallia glared at him. "You think that Tano is strong enough to enter the mind of a Jedi Master and drive her insane?"

Plo Koon shook his head. "She would not attack Younglings. Not even in Darkness would she stoop that low."

Saesee Tiin laughed. "When one falls to the Dark Side, nothing is too low, Master Plo. Tano is lost, and that is that."

"You make it sound so simple," mused Plo Koon, and the conversation sprang up again.

The Jedi Masters started talking over one another, fighting for attention and validity. The only one who did not engage in the arguing was Master Yoda, who only looked on as the others began shouting, standing up, taking sides. They argued about the tips, about Master Ti, about the Younglings, about the Inquisitor, about the Sith, about anything and everything possible. Yoda did not try to stop it but only looked on as he saw the anger build.

Nothing was decided that night or the next day. Jedi Knights, Padawans, and Younglings held their own discussions, trying to decide whether they agreed with so and so or not. Twenty-four hours after the seven had been admitted to the Halls of Healing, the entire Temple was hacking away at one another save for three people, not including the victims.

The first was Yoda. Instead of trying to convince others of his point of view, he sat and meditated, trying to see what had truly caused the Council, and the Order, into chaos. The veil prevented this, and he saw nothing.

The second was Caleb Dume. He spent much time with the Younglings, trying to talk to them, but they only shushed him and told him to wait until after they were alone. So he waited, and he watched his master argue with her colleagues.

The third was Anakin Skywalker. He spent as much time as possible at the Chancellor's office trying to get away from all of the debate, but the Chancellor had to leave on an urgent call, and Anakin was forced to return to the Temple. He managed to secure the mission to complete the last tip given to them and was able to spend the next few rotations on his cruiser instead of in the Temple. Now, they had no more tips. They were back to where they started, except they were more divided than ever. The debates had resurfaced, along with new ones, and very few missions were given out during that time.

The Temple gradually sank into concealed chaos. The vision that the Younglings and Shaak had seen was coming to life. The Darkness was taking hold. Cracks erupted from within, and the Council was consumed and blinded by their own anger. Tension built, and the Temple started to crack.

The Order began to break.