The sun was falling on the Temple as a lone Jedi searched it's silent, empty halls, slipping from shadow to shadow. The only direction he knew was the one that the Force was guiding him. Not to where I need to be now, but where I need to be when I get there. It was the way of things, the way of the Jedi that he was simply a physical conduit for the will of the Force. Sometimes it wasn't enough, but that was why he had his brothers and sisters, the others of the Jedi Order, the other servants of peace. Because in the worst situations everything that usually should have mattered suddenly meant nothing, and it was only about his brethren, those that fought beside him.

The Jedi Padawan Cahal Meyrick walked alone onto a high walkway in a large, open room that served as a junction point for several places in the Temple. And that is what is starting to eat at me. As pupils they were all taught about the ancient Second Sith War, the implosion of the Brotherhood of Darkness and the hunting down of Bane, the last of the Sith Lords.

He hopped out onto the balcony rail and landed softly into the shadow of a large pillar on another walkway about halfway to the ground floor. When studying their history the self-destruction of Force-users can seem almost natural at times. But they never see fit to help us come to terms with brother verses brother. Killing those who we're meant to be fighting with, shoulder to shoulder. It would seem from an outsider's perspective that the Jedi Council liked to guard secrets. Never mind whatever is in the holocrons that only a Master is allowed to see.

Cahal came to a stop, crouching in the shadows as he watched two cloaked figures walk out of a door on the ground at the end of the room. A moment later they were met by two more from their right, and another who dropped down from an upper floor. It's him. The powerful young Jedi that threw him out of the Tower.

He couldn't hear a thing from where he hid, watching the six Jedi converge and speak with each other, not that he needed to though. He looked through the Force, and was told all he truly needed to know. Together, the five of them were like a large dark orb that was sitting on a suspended sheet – they had a weight to them, one the universe seemed to gravitate toward.

Then the one giving instruction turned their head, and he could make out the face underneath their hood. Depa Billaba. She was Master Windu's apprentice before him, and according to many was to be raised to Mastery very soon. If she can fall... There was no way to finish the thought. There were too many implications and he had absolutely no answers.

His grip tightened as he realised what he would have to do. She's far too dangerous to be left wandering the Temple. If she were to sneak up on me it would be all finished. He took a breath and relaxed his hand around the shaft of the lightsaber he had made on the fly from whatever pieces he could find around the Temple. A fleeting moment of fondness ran through him, he wasn't sure it would even work until he finished it, and in the few minutes he'd had it he had found himself liking the orange.

Five are too many. Need to wait for them to separate. And almost like a command two broke away and headed for the doorway Billaba had come out of. A moment later Billba turned the other way and started the long trek across the room, the other two at her heels. Soon. He closed his eyes, listening and waiting.

Now. He reached out through the Force and pulled his arms across himself, then rose, took two steps, and leaped into their air. He opened his eyes as he landed on a part of a pillar, turning his head to see a clump of rubble flying at the three from the other side of the room. Billaba leaped backwards into the air, and Cahal jumped to meet her, igniting his new orange lightsaber and spinning as he hurtled toward her.

The two younger men jumped away at the last moment from the large rocks, and Cahal met Billaba in the air as the rocks crashed into the floor, her letting go of her lightsaber at the last possible moment before Cahal's blade cut the hilt in half, causing the barely seen green blade to flash and blink out of existence as Cahal whipped around and kicked her in the face.

He landed softly with his left knee on the floor, lightsaber held out to the side. They're recovering, need to be quick. He never even raised his head, just charged the two younger men as they stood barely three feet from each other, both turning toward him as their blue blades burst into life. The second has a dual-blade, could be handy. He pushed, using everything he knew as he darted from place to place, his body a blur as he kept the two men pinned tightly together, the four blades all cramped for room. At this range there was no mistaking the young man that threw him from the Tower, but the other, the one wielding the dual-blade saberstaff was wearing a mask.

This is it. The young, powerful one had to block one end of the saberstaff while Cahal had to block the other. Can't wait for another. He reached out and whipped some of the smaller rubble about, tripping the young man that threw him out of the tower, and Cahal pulled around the saberstaff from his end. The end result was that three of the four blades carved the young man into several smaller pieces.

But the other wasn't about to let any of it faze him, and struck out with his back turned, which Cahal blocked easily. Can't let up. He could already feel Billaba recovering. Letting go of his own weapon with one hand he snatched a hold of the saberstaff's hilt, keeping the blue blade at bay with his orange he grappled with the masked man.

As they twisted and turned Cahal went with the strength of the masked man, and wound up in front of him with the saberstaff horizontal and his orange on top. He looked into the eye-slit of the mask, seeing the man that lay behind, and saw that he knew it too. It's over. Cahal swept his orange blade across, and the masked man leaped into the air and let go of his weapon, flipping over his head. But Cahal simply gripped the handle of the saberstaff, lifted it over his head, and spun it so fast that the glow became a large blue circle. I can literally feel his lower half disappear. Suddenly he felt cold.

Gaze flickering between what remained of the two he needed a moment to catch his breath. Better to be lucky than good. Behind him he felt Billaba rising. But then, the good make their own luck. He turned, and through a light red haze he saw Depa Billaba get to her feet, the blue beam of the last lightsaber in the room in her hands. "You have no idea what you're doing boy."

"Just trying to figure out what's happening." He felt the sweat start to pop out. I need a minute. Ataro was taxing at the most lenient of times.

"You just attacked and killed two of our brothers is what's happening."

I can actually feel the change, the lack of life. "He attacked me first."

"You're the one from the Padawan living quarters." Billaba inched closer, trying to appear relaxed. "You really don't know, do you?"

He turned to his side so the orange blade in his right hand was directed at Billaba, and the blue saberstaff vertical behind his back. "I know enough." A Jedi's ally is the Force. When calm, at peace, guide you it will. A Jedi, uses the strength for knowledge and defense, never attack. Yoda teaches all the children the earliest lessons about the nature of a Jedi's relationship with the Force. And a good lesson it was, even if I hadn't known it at the time. His breathing settled. Calm.

She smiled contemptuously. "You know nothing." She brought the blue blade up and stepped forward. "And if you listen to what that old fool once taught us, you will fall like the rest."

Let's find out. "I'm waiting."

She came to a stop with their blades almost touching. "You're as confident as he is. Mace. He had high hopes for you. Too bad." She whipped her blade and with a crack it crashed against Cahal's orange above his head, and faster than the eyes of a normal being could see it had cracked again, this time blocked before it was to cut his right knee, leaving only an echo of light before it cracked a third time, parried as Cahal spun, whirling the saberstaff over his head. A fourth crack, Billaba parried his orange as he came about. A fifth crack, low between them as Cahal stepped back. A sixth crack as Billaba stepped forward, Cahal catching her blade between two of his, pushing them high and with the Force he shot forward, the sole of his right foot crashing into her belly and sending her to the floor.

Cahal watched on, letting half of the saberstaff die out and getting into a classic dual-blade Jar'kai ready stance as Billaba got back to her feet, a little more cautious now.

A Sith draws his power through the Force from his emotions; fear, anger, jealousy, hate. "Mace would be ashamed of you."

"Me?" She said, smiling as she stepped forward, bringing her blade up once more in her Juyo fashion. "I was his star pupil. You were nothing more than Sifo Dyas' leftovers. A child he took pity on." And she struck with a crack.

On the matter of Vaapad, it's greatest weakness lies in the nature of the artform itself.

Vaapad, like each and every other form of Jedi combat is built around a mentality, a spiritual aspect and certain merging of the Force-user and the Force itself.

The way you totally become one with the Force in Shii-cho. The Force-enhanced manoeuvres and commitment to attack of Ataro. The utter calmness of Soresu. The grace and elegance of Makashi. The power and determination of Shien and Djem-so. And the total emotional insanity of Juyo.

Vaapad, when it's most complete form is achieved makes it's user an open conduit of the Force. Everything one's enemy throws at a Master of Vaapad gets sucked into the user, and thrown back out at their opponent. All one's effort and focus is put into maintaining this conduit, and subsequently the ultimate form of Vaapad is a style of swordplay and Force knowledge that causes one singe outcome: the master uses their opponent as a battery to destroy him with the insane attacking sequences of Juyo.

That being the case, there has only ever been one true master of this lightsaber technique: Mace Windu, who created it as an answer to combat and handle the darkness within himself. And this is the case because of the form's final requirement, one that practically goes against everything the Jedi Order teaches it's students: to successfully achieve a Master's level at Vaapad, one must completely immerse oneself in the fight. One must allow oneself to enjoy the fight, the thrill of combat, whether successful or not.

No other Jedi has been known to Master it, though Sora Bulq came close, it was Depa Billaba who was once recognised as being the most likely candidate to follow in her one-time Master's footsteps.

Crack, crack, crack, crack, crack, crack, crack. Cahal Meyrick and Depa Billaba darted and swept all around each other, seemingly across the entire floor of the giant hallway in the center of the Jedi Temple. They moved so fast they were barely a blur in the space between the fading moments of light leftover whenever their lightsabers crashed together.

Crack, crack. Cahal was taught the lessons of Vaapad from Mace Windu, just as Depa Billaba had been. Vaapad works much the same as an electrical current, taking all that your opponent throws at you and sending it back at them. So Cahal chose to sit back, and allow Billaba the attack, purposefully not attacking her and thus preventing the circuit from completing, forcing all her power to come from within herself.

Crack, crack, crack. It did not make her less dangerous though, Cahal ducking and weaving, still forcing himself to move faster and faster to hold his own. He was no master of Vaapad either; though Master Windu was impressed with the speed he achieved in spite of his shortcomings in the fluidity of the form itself. Though he loved the fight he was never actually able to surrender to it, to something other than himself. It just feels wrong. Whether about Vaapad, or something else, he hadn't yet been able to work out. "And until you do, you will never successfully master Juyo." His Master had informed him in the midst of a lesson about meant to make him see the similarities between all the forms, the trueness of oneself when immersed in the Force. And yet it doesn't stop me from comprehending the interconnectivity of the Force within all things.

Crack, crack... Crack... Crack-crack, crack... The only warning he got was a slight brush of the Force, but it was enough for him to be ready when Billaba over-committed, and lunged. It was a slight gap that Cahal had opened up, her blade driving for his chest; a move that would have killed most Jedi. But Cahal used the Force to shift himself to the left as he brought his blue lightsaber across, pushing Billaba's to the side until it crashed against the orange, his grip reversed, locking her lightasber as his finger triggered the second blade of the saberstaff.

Depa Billaba had no time to react, never mind to counter as the second blade of the saberstaff severed her from right shoulder to left hip. Cahal hit the ground in the midst of a a crumbling of body parts. All the plasma gone from sight, the debris of the battle the only sign that they were ever there.

Cahal leaned back, breathing hard as sweat poured down him, looking down he saw blood trickle down his side as he let go I won't be able to keep this up. As the Force left him he started to feel the ache in his muscles, and he followed the blood to see the wound in his side had broken open. After a few precious moments he couldn't help it. His eyes swept over the shredded corpses, all that remained of his brothers and sister. My family.