Chapter 6

Fragile

PRESENT

"I knew this was all too easy" Qui-Gon said.

"Right in one, Master Jinn, right in one," Xanatos said, walking over to the blaster burns in the wall. "He's very efficient you know." Xanatos remarked. "You should be proud."

"Proud of what you've done?!" Qui-Gon said angrily.

"Do you think so low of him that he couldn't be capable of doing this?" Xanatos said gesturing to the blaster riddled walls. "He always been this talented, I just had to free him from his bindings and set him lose," Xanatos smiled. "Not only that, but this time he came to me."

"You're wrong!" Bant said stepping forward. "He would never join you!"

Xanatos smirked.

"Hey," he said, raising his hands, "Your words not mine."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Tahl asked.

"What does it matter?" he smiled, "Soon you'll be dead anyway."

Suddenly he shouted.

"Padawan!"

The door opened.

"Yes Master?"

It was none other than Obi-Wan Kenobi, alive, healthy, and, judging by the lightsaber in his hands, ready to fight.

"Kill them."

"Yes Master," With a maniac gleam in his eyes, Obi-Wan turned to the three Jedi and ignited his lightsaber.

"Prepare to die."

A smirking Xanatos waved at Qui-Gon then left the room, practically skipping.

"Obi-Wan," Qui-Gon said.

Obi-Wan replied by swinging his lightsaber down directly in front of him and slicing the desk in front of the trio in half.

"I don't think he wants to talk with us," Tahl whispered. "You really have some explaining to do, you know."

Kicking the broken desk out of the way, not bothering to walk around it, Obi-Wan raised his lightsaber against Qui-Gon.

At the last possible moment, Qui-Gon lit his weapon and blocked the blow.

"Obi-Wan, you don't have to do this," He said.

"My Master asked me to," Obi-Wan replied with a slight smile.

"Obi-Wan, I am your master," Qui-Gon said.

Bant made her presence known.

"What about the senators?" Bant said. "Did you do that because your 'master' asked you to?"

Before anyone could blink, Obi-Wan was in her face, hand griping her throat, picking g her up off the ground.

"Now you get the idea," he answered.

Gasping, Tahl raised her hands and sent a powerful force push towards Obi-Wan. However, rather than knock him clear into the wall as it was supposed to, it only made him look at Tahl in annoyance.

"You Jedi really are pathetic," Leaving Bant to drop to the floor gasping for air, Obi-Wan jumped at Tahl and of it wasn't for Qui-Gon's saving block she would have found herself in two neat pieces lying on the floor.

"I don't know what he did to you Obi-Wan but you have to resist it," Qui-Gon pleaded.

"Wouldn't you like to know though," Then with that he launched into a lightening quick series of thrusts and blows, with Qui-Gon only barley managing to keep up. The worst part of it, was that it seemed like the lightsaber was a mere decoration, as if he could fight without it. Moving into the open area on the other side of the broken desk, the two Jedi fought, though it was obvious who had the upper hand.

Tahl watched in awe. She always knew Obi-Wan was good, but not this good.

Suddenly Qui-Gon was lying on the floor, breathing heavily, with a large wound across his left leg. Knowing that it was now or never, Tahl silently communicated with Bant. Obi-Wan was standing directly in front of the window. As she was doing this, though, Obi-Wan looked at her as if he knew what she was doing and raised his hand towards her.

"Now!" Suddenly, the window broke into pieces as Obi-Wan was pushed out of it. Running to the window, not caring about the sharp edges, Bant watched as Obi-Wan fell out of sight.

"Qui-Gon!" Tahl ran to his side and looked at the wound. It was pretty deep. "We better get back to the temple."

Qui-Gon nodded.

"Bant, come help me," Turning away from the window, she came to Tahl's side and helped Qui-Gon to get up.

Leaving the disaster that the office had become, the trio slowly made their way back to the Temple.

"Stopped he must be," Yoda said gravely. They were now in the healer's ward, Qui-Gon laying in bad, his leg bandaged, with the other Jedi surrounding him.

"How?" Tahl asked. "He's…something else now. He would have killed us all if we hadn't gotten lucky with the force push-"

"He fell out the window, how could he possibly survive?" Bant asked, confused.

It was Qui-Gon who answered her.

"Somehow, after his little display, I don't think that surviving a fall like that would be a problem for him."

"I mean, look at him Bant," Tahl continued. "He was dead. Now he's out there killing people."

"During that fight, he wasn't even using his full ability," Qui-Gon said.

"He was playing with us?" Tahl said just a bit stunned.

"That or he just didn't think we were going to be that much of a challenge," Qui-Gon supposed.

"But that still doesn't help us in stopping him," Bant said.

"Qui-Gon, I think you tell us about what happened on Muunilinst," Tahl said.

The three Jedi waited patiently for Qui-Gon to explain.

"I saw Obi-Wan there," he looked up, "The real one."

Yoda's eyes narrowed at this.

"He came to me as a being of the force," Qui-Gon looked down at his hands. "He told me that I needed to kill his body."

"So, his soul, not one with his body is it?" Yoda asked.

"That's what I understood," Qui-Gon replied.

"Not possible it is to rejoin the two?"

"Obi-Wan didn't seem to think so."

"But, think you do, that possible it is?" Yoda sagely said.

"I won't give up on him," Qui-Gon said determined.

"Then, find out, you must, what made him this way," Yoda said. "Only then will you find a way to resolve this."

Before Tahl could speak, Yoda answered her.

"This, your new mission will be, connected these events are," Yoda said. "As soon as well, you are Qui-Gon, start you will" Yoda said. Then he quietly shuffled out of the room.

5 MONTHS BEFORE

This was crazy. Who knew a Jedi's life could resemble a soap opera? The things Qui-Gon had seen had shown him that Jedi could be pettier than generally thought. Though this behavior mainly concerned the initiates and padawan's, knights and masters were also in the mix.

The most common behavior though, Qui-Gon had found, was that of stealing food from the kitchens. If he had to watch another initiate sneak into the kitchen for some late night treat then he was going to give up right then.

Not only had he seen young initiates and padawan's partaking of the kitchen, but also grown knights, and even masters. What un-Jedi like behavior. If the only the council knew.

But who was he kidding, of course the council knew. And not everyone was as stiff a Jedi Master as he was, not feeling the need for something sweet late at night.

He was rambling.

Sighing, he rubbed his temples and struggled to calm his mind so as to focus on the task at hand.

In the two weeks he had been doing this, he had yet to find a trace of his missing apprentice outside of the training rooms.

That particular video had shocked him.

He had never seen Obi-Wan so dark and menacing, relying on the dark side for energy.

This made Obi-Wan's outburst back when he was still an initiate fighting for Qui-Gon's approval, so minute it was inconsequential.

But what made the fight so strange, was the fact that in the days leading up to it, Obi-Wan had been every bit as normal as Qui-Gon had known him to be. At times he did seem down, but Qui-Gon attributed that to his own absence.

"Where are you?" He asked no one in particular.

As he was looking at the different choices of holo's to view, he caught sight of one that he could have sworn wasn't there before.

This holo was from a part of the temple under repairs, a place where no one, outside of those fixing it, went to anymore.

Curious, Qui-Gon selected it and picked the date of Obi-Wan's disappearance.

After a few minutes of darkness, Qui-Gon was ready to give up, but a new inspiration grabbed him.

He fast forwarded the holo through the day and into the night.

Suddenly the light came on.

A small gasp escaped Qui-Gon as he rushed to turn it to normal speed. Seconds later Qui-Gon was rewarded with the sight of his lost padawan. His happiness of success quickly faded as what was being shown slowly began to register in his brain.

Obi-Wan was being chased. And from the looks on his face, he was obviously terrified.

But what could terrify Obi-Wan so? And in the Safety of the Temple no less? Yet at the same time he couldn't help but think of how Obi-Wan had been the danger for Bant.

Intrigued, Qui-Gon watched as Obi-Wan ran up to the lift tube and frantically scoured the surface for the call button. Terror was in his eyes as he looked back to where he had come from. Then he seemed to freeze as resignation filled his expressive eyes. What happened next brought Qui-Gon within inches of the small screen.

The lights went out on the small screen. Straining his ears, Qui-Gon heard a small whizzing sound followed by the sound of someone slumping to the ground.

"No," Qui-Gon muttered.

He frantically forwarded the holo only to find that when the lights came back on, Obi-Wan was nowhere in sight.

A momentous headache formed in Qui-Gon's head as he reviewed what he had just seen. Rewinding the holo, Qui-Gon re-watched it several times taking in every detail and storing in his brain. Then he closed the station as left the archives.

It was time to meditate.

It was a bright sunny day, consisting of what happy memories are made of. A brightly dressed little boy laughed as he threw a rather large ball to his waiting father. Shouting praise, the father caught the ball then proceeded to run to his son, grabbing the little tot and hugging him, spinning him round and round, as the little boy giggled madly in delight.

Obi-Wan sighed.

Though the little boy's happiness would be infectious to a normal person, even more so for a Jedi, he was anything but normal, and he finally was admitting that to himself. It was a horrible thing to have to acknowledge. He had always known he was different because of his being a Jedi, and he had seen that first hand on missions with his master.

But this type of different was…different.

He couldn't quite define what it was, but he was changing, slowly, but surely. And he was scared. With longing in his eyes, he looked to the happy scene playing in front of his basement window out in the facility's gardens. It looked like the father-son duo were now done and heading inside, both with silly grins plastered on their slightly sweaty faces.

The sound of a door opening drew Obi-Wan's attention away from the window. Turning around, he watched as one of his fellow prisoners was being returned, and from the looks of it, it had been a rather trying day for the haggard looking young man.

"You."

After setting down the young man non to gently, the burly man pointed his thick finger at a terrified looking young man curled up in the corner of the room. Almost as if against his will, the young man stiffly stood up and walked jerkily towards the man, following him out of the door. Silence ruled the tense atmosphere in the minutes following the closing of the door. But as the minutes ticked on, one young man's curiosity got the better of him.

Obi-Wan merely watched the scene unfold from his viewpoint under the window, knowing that to get involved was pointless. In fact he had come to realize that curiosity was rather useless and meaningless for him these days. But still he looked on, if only to see how everyone else was progressing in this prison. Slowly but surely the newly returned young man reached the other young man and shook his shoulder.

The young man, who had been listlessly staring straight ahead, seeing nothing, suddenly turned and pounced upon his perceived attacker like a caged animal, fiercely knocking the young man into the wall and holding his neck in a death grip.

Then as suddenly as it had come, it was gone. The young man reverted to his former lifeless self, letting the young man slump to the floor confused and dazed by the sudden attack. Frowning, Obi-Wan turned back to the window to see what scenes could take him away from this torture, if but for a few minutes.

However this was not to be, for walking up the garden path was none other than Xanatos himself. Sighing, Obi-Wan turned his back to the window and slumped to the floor, drawing his knees to his chest.

Every time Xanatos came, Pain was sure to follow. And it was always worse every time.

He could only wonder how long he would be able to hold out before he became like that young man, paranoid to the touch, and animalistic in nature. Slowly Obi-Wan began to rock back and forth, finding comfort in the motion. For a few minutes all was silent. Then the door opened and an evil smirk greeted him.

"Shall we?"

Knowing it was pointless to resist, Obi-Wan stood up and followed his captor out of the room. Whether or not he would be returning sane or insane, he did not know.