Form VII juyo was, as Maul had taught it to Ezra, utterly vicious and unpredictable; it exchanged defense for an overwhelming offense and, when done correctly, its sequences could breach the defenses of even the finest soresu masters. Ezra hadn't mastered the form. He wasn't even close.

Poison-tipped stick held in both hands, Ezra took ready position once more across from his master. His body had a thin layer of sweat over it; it slid down his forehead, coming down from his midnight blue locks to slap against the unforgiving durasteel of the Savage. Had he been on Dathomir, he'd've had an amp from the planet; but Maul had made a point to only instruct Ezra in the seventh form in space, to wean him off the dark energies of the planet that he had been trained on for the majority of the previous two years. At first Ezra had stumbled, tripped, and made mistake after embarrassing mistake with the form. Now he'd adapted to fight without an sort of dark side amp.

The moment of stillness between mentor and student was broken when the latter charged to former, opening with an effective, if not crude, succession of slashes and thrusts, each of which Maul blocked with ease. Ezra disengaged, spinning away from the zabrak. Maul was about to attack and test Ezra's use of Form III, when his apprentice flew at him again.

Swift slashes that gave no quarter were met by Maul's stick over and over again. Near the end of the basic sequence, Ezra chained in a kick meant to dislodge several of the zabrak's teeth. Surprised, Maul caught the kick with one hand and yanked. His apprentice came unceremoniously to the ground, shock and pain in their eyes. Ezra dropped his stick, and it clattered to the ground whilst he looked up to see Maul level his own training stick at his throat.

"And there goes your head."

Ezra was unsure of how many times he'd heard that specific phrase over two years of Maul's tutelage. The zabrak held his stick at Ezra's throat for another moment before moving it to rest against his robotic right leg. He didn't offer Ezra a hand to help him to his feet - not that Ezra expected that any more - and the teen rose to their feet with a minor grunt. When he did, Maul spoke:

"Your attacks were crude," He chided, "You have, however seemed to have mastered them enough." Ezra nodded, calling his stick to his hand with the force. He felt slight pide in Maul's compliment, but focused more on the zabrak's criticism.

"The kick you incorporated at the end, however, was unexpected." Ezra had surprised his master? No matter how small that feeling may have been, that was something worthy of note. Ezra's pride soared before Maul, in his typical fashion, made his blood turn cold.

"Again."

Ezra took position across from Maul, feet spread instinctually in the ready position taught to him by Kanan. Sweat-laced fingers wrapped around his training stick. A breath entered his mouth and exited his nose. Maul waited, patience waning, as his apprentice prepared himself for another bout. Then he flew at him again. He struck once more with basic strikes, moving on instinct. Maul let exaggerated boredom cross his features, and was met with increasing speed with Ezra.

The teen made a diagonal strike downward and to Maul's right, which the zabrak blocked. Instead of taking a step back, he countered with a Form V counter to Ezra's right arm. The teen's eyes widened for a moment before the stick struck the limb. The poison the stick was tipped with, native to Dathomir itself, was painful. He had been hit with it before, and it still hurt like all kriff. Ezra dropped his stick, feeling his am go limp and directing his eyes back to Maul.

"You were getting predictable," The zabrak said, a frown of disapproval across his face. "The exact thing Juyo is designed to avoid."

Ezra nodded, beginning to turn; every time he got hit, the session was over.

"Again."

Apparently Maul had other ideas.

Ezra spun, narrowly ducking under a swing that threatened his head. He didn't even have time open his mouth before Maul swong again. He jumped back from that one, only to cede more ground when Maul followed it with an overhead cleave. This was eerily similar to his fight with the magnaguards, Ezra realised after several more minutes of dodging Maul's attacks. He couldn't maintain his movement for much longer, with Maul's dogged attacks against him.

Yet he couldn't find an opening; he was sure there might have been some to exploit had his training stick been with him, but he never found the time to pick it up. Maul continued, cleaving the air over and over again, Ezra spinning, twirling, and ducking to avoid them. Eventually, after a particularly fast succession of attacks, Ezra found him close to his training stick once more. His eyes flicked to his master; Maul's eyes were a glowing gold, with his lithe frame poised to make a downward cleave towards Ezra's head. The teen's eyes flicked back to his training stick, then back to Maul. He was exhausted, his aching muscles slowing him more and more as the seconds ticked by. Diving for the training stick, Ezra wrapped his left fingers around it, raising it just in time to meet Maul's strike.

The sharp sound that followed wasn't registered by either. Ezra's left arm began to shake under the stress as Maul pushed harder, continuing the blade lock. After a few moments, in desperation, Ezra disengaged and, with time seeming to slow, sent a roundhouse to Maul's kneecaps. His foot struck home, causing Maul to chafe. Ezra spun out of the way, fully expecting another attack, only to find Maul rise a tad shakily to his feet, a small, self-satisfied smile on his face.

"Well done." He said, whilst Ezra blinked, exhaustion making consciousness a far more difficult objective to achieve then it had been only minutes earlier. Maul extrapolated what Ezra had done correctly and incorrectly whilst his apprentice listened numbly; his muscles ached, screaming at him to collapse onto the cot in his room aboard the Savage. Maul, after two minutes of critique, gave Ezra the combination of words he'd been seceretly praying for:

"That is enough for today, apprentice. You are dismissed." Ezra nodded, thankful, and with a tired mind made his way to his room. It was simple and scarcely decorated; a single cot, without blankets, in the right corner and a refresher unit in the left. Ezra had an extra set of clothes on the nightstand next to his bed, a simple pair of military black pants and gray shirt. His traveling cloak was under those, furled up. His lightsaber laid atop the pile clothing, too.

Ezra trudged toward his cot and laid down on it, falling into sleep's embrace a moment after he did so.

Ezra found himself, again - for whatever reason - on Malachor. Yet now he was in the sith temple. The heart of it.

It was silent - utterly. Ezra looked out and saw the preserved bodies of the jedi and sith who had fought on the planet millennia ago; they were fossilised, frozen in various states. Some were poised in cleaves or in mid-strike, others in mid-collapse, while a select few were caught in fisticuffs. Ezra felt an unnatural breeze move a few strands out of place and turned around; he saw the place where he got the sith holocron - the one he'd destroyed.

He felt the force nexus in the temple's center, yet he didn't see the holocron. The nexus still emanated a pulsing purple-pink light, but there wasn't anything there. Against his better judgement, Ezra approached it.

The light danced across his pale features, and as he got closer he began to see something; it was vague outline of a feminine body, one he guessed was human, with bright red hair. Confused, Ezra took a step closer. The wind got stronger, sending more of his hair out of line, but the teen ignored it.

The image was clearer; it was the same body, and red hair, but now he saw their face; it was that of a fifteen to fourteen year-old, with gray eyes and a caring smile. A smile. That caught Ezra off guard. But he continued forward nonetheless.

A few more steps had the wind began to howl in his ears, and fight against his movement. Yet the image became even clearer; now he saw they were slightly shorter than he had been a few years ago, with the same caring smile.

Yet the projection began to shift, and the smile was replaced with an upset frown as the person's eyes began to tear up. Ezra, still confounded, took a single step closer before a faint voice reached his ears.

"Well, then. I guess this is good-bye. Take care, Ezra."

Ezra shot up, sweat sliding down his forehead. His armpits were saturated with his body's natural cooler, too. He gauged his heartbeat to be in the one-fifties; his hair was matted and frayed. Swinging his legs over the side of his cot, Ezra glanced at the chrono affixed to his refresher: it was six am. Time to get to Maul.

Ezra crossed his room and splashed some water in his face, the cool liquid snapping him back into sharp awareness. The teen looked at his reflection; his hair was in disarray and darkened with sweat, and his eyes, which in the past two years had obtained a constant, thin yellow ring, were lacking it. Ezra frowned and turned away from the refresher, shaking his head and collecting his lightsaber from his pile of clothes.

The weapon flew into his open palm, with his fingers wrapping around the hilt tightly the moment it did so. He clipped it to his belt and opened his cabin's door. The door slid past, revealing an empty hall. Maul should've been there waiting for him. It was what he'd always done; find Ezra at six, work him impossibly hard until midday, then do what he did in the morning again. A few hours of rest later and the cycle repeated itself. Yet it seemed Maul had missed the beginning of it.

Was it a test? Was Maul waiting for Ezra to come to him now? What did it mean? Those were the questions that carried Ezra to the designated training area on the Savage. The door slid past him to reveal not Maul, but the empty training area. Ezra reached out with the force, legitimately worried. Had his master made a mistake? From everything Ezra had seen Maul do that should've been impossible; yet he hadn't met him outside his room or in the training area. Ezra glanced the chrono above the training area's door: it was six fifteen.

Another minute came and went as Ezra probed the force for his master's location and found nothing. With a mix of confusion, frustration, and worry Ezra began his daily warm up exercises.

He began with sit ups, followed by jumping jacks and finally push ups; the last of the three done first with two arms, then twice using the right and left arms alone. Ezra had just risen from his final set of push ups when the door to the training area slid open. He heard the pneumatic hiss followed by the ever-troubling snap-hiss of a lightsaber being ignited. It was red, and it's wielder held it a two-handed grip, a hood attached to a pitch-black cloak hiding their face.

They flew at Ezra, blade raised high above their head. Ezra collected himself a moment after they jumped,igniting his lightsaber just in time to intercept the strike. There was a crackle as the two plasma weapons contacted each other, and Ezra disengaged from the potential blade lock. He made a horizontal crosscut for their waist, which they blocked and reciprocated. Ezra spun out of the way, blocking their following thrust and responding in kind. THis strike was parried, and then countered immediately.

Ezra flipped backward, giving ground. His opponent gave no quarter, making use of a strike that would've cut a deep, cauterized trench from Ezra's right shoulder to his belly had he not parried it. He grit his teeth, countering again only to get a mirrored response. His opponent was better than he was, Ezra had realised after several more passes between them. He had several bruises and a purpling wound around his left eye after five more minutes of the duel. He resisted the urge to grip his side, trying to keep a calm face despite his battered frame and ragged breathing; his muscles were aching, everything hurt, and he was losing the drive to fight.

But his opponent initiated another pass, and Ezra was forced to fight despite his injuries. His opponent smashed through his defenses easily, the teen giving desperate ground in a vain attempt to survive the onslaught. Ezra went into the air and landed on his side when his opponent kicked him hard in the chest.

Everything hurt so much that it was, ironically, becoming faint in Ezra's mind; he saw his attacker jump towards him once more, saber held in a position to utilize a strike that would leave Ezra's head in two halfs. As they got closer, his mind began to panic; it looked for some way out. It searched frantically through it's memories; Ezra losing his parents, being left behind by friends, losing Ahsoka…

Ezra's mind harkened back to the previous day when he had trained with Mau and it remembered the lesson it had derived from it; be unpredictable. The figure was two thirds of the way towards him when Ezra when he opened a bloodied palm, calling his lightsaber to his hand.

The second it his his palm, Ezra rolled to the side, smelling the ozone wafting from his opponent's lightsaber blade. With a mixture of desperation, fear of death, and anger at the universe for once more seemingly trying to kill him, he began to make use of Form VII, Juyo.

His strikes were fueled by the insatiable desire for life, and as such both shocked and pleased his opponent. After a few more passes with Ezra on the attack, he twirled away from one of their counters, moving with surprising grace from Form VII to III, Ezra met their follow up thrust and switched once more to Form VII. This time he managed to get within a hair's breath of singing his opponent's cloak, to which they backflipped away. Ezra began to start another attck sequence when they held up a hand.

"Yield!" Maul boomed, throwing back his hood. His face was once more formed into a self-satisfied smile, showing his yellowed teeth. Ezra froze, movement coming to a halt as he stared at his master. The zabrak deactivated their lightsaber, their ruby blade retracting soundlessly. Again, Ezra was too tired, with the added problem of being exhausted, to acutely respond to anything Maul said.

"This was your final test, apprentice." Ezra snapped out of his stupor at that. "It will take a few days to prepare fully for this mission, yet I believe you are ready for it." Ezra nodded numbly.

"What is it, master?" The teen asked tiredly, pushing down a yawn that threatened his composure. Maul gave him a meaningful look before speaking.

"It is dangerous," He said, "I am uncertain as to whether you will survive it." Ezra nodded again, burying the alarm that went off in his head at the zabrak's words.

"I am ready, master," He said, and even though it lacked the volume it should have, Maul heard the conviction in it.

"I need you to infiltrate and gain the support of the rebellion."

Unt ze plot thickens! I enjoyed writing this chapter, but I'm a bit uncertain as to how I write combat. Feel free to give me your thoughts! Any and all reviews/follows/favorites will be duly noted. - Raging Celiac