‘In the following minutes of my impriso, I was absorbed in an activity that be described as imagining that sweet moment when I will, and I will, blow up that droid in as many ways as possible.‘

  ‘The first method I came up with was simple and straightforward. I crushed it with the sheer power of the force. The only problem with this method is that I will have to wait for a few years to do it.’

  ‘My physical body would bee too drained after exerting such effort, dangerously so.’

  ‘The was more realistic for the current me. Melting it with sith lighting. I could use a few different variants already. Using sith lightning teiques is not as draining as some may think.’

  ‘The main reason is that you very finely trol its power. Based on how much force you el into each burst of lightning. You choose to slowly cook your target from the i, with weaker bursts, or use one short yet powerful bst that kills instantly.’

  ‘The tter is obviously very tiresome, but I think I do it without dangerously draining my resources.’

  ‘At least with the basic lightning teique, the purple one is much more demanding. There is another ooo, a red lightning variant, that drains life essence from its victims, but taking into sideration that my oppo is a droid that wouldn’t be of much use.’

  ‘I couldn’t kill it with my lightsaber sadly, it is much faster and strohan I am, it would be foolish to get in cle, so I guess the lightning and some force shields, maybe a little speed entment had to be enough.’

  ‘Now, the only problem is getting out of here. That is the challenge. Assuming that this damn droid po drop me here in the first pce, instead of actually doing his job and guarding me, well, not that I need much guarding really, I would be just fihout his so-called help.’

  ‘I sat up on my bed to look around one more time. There was a desk, a chair, my bed, and, of course, a door leading to the toilet, most likely. Oh, and there are the cameras, I almost fot about the always vigint eyes of the order. Well, it is a prison room, so I should not be surprised…’

  ‘I guess it’s time to enjoy my new home. Such hospitality is quite nice really… I expected way worse… that said they didn’t quite realize yet that I wasn’t just some extremely misbehaving youngling already part of their order. That might be the reason why they didn’t treat me harsher…’

  ‘I looked at the closed door and sighed… letting out some of my pent up frustration.’

  ‘Of course I could open that door with the help of the force, but what then? I don’t have my lightsaber, and even if I had, there is no way I could escape this pce so easily.’

  ‘I will py the good girl, for now, I guess.’

  ‘I have fiden my power, but I am not stupid enough to think that I steal back my saber and hide from the whole Jedi Order in their own temple.’

  ‘You know the saying, that individual strength overe numerical superiority, well, the guy who said it was most likely beaten to death by a mob…’

  ‘I mean, in some cases, it could happen. There was that crazy guy, Darth Nihilis, or was it Nihilus? Anyway... he was basically a force wound, a walking bck hole with basitelligence.’

  ‘A pitiful creature that was, his personality and mind long shattered from the endless hunger trolled by his basic urges in an inhuman way. That state of existence is what I sider hell. One man is not suited to hold that much raw power, aim for band be reasonable.’

  ‘Therefore, I will accept that I am at the mercy of the jedi for now. They don’t know who I am, and they only saw a girl with a rare ship, and some forowledge from an unknown master. Yet, I am ied; will they really adopt me? Is that even legal? Well, thinking about it, they are used to kidnapping small children from their parents at a much younger age than I am. So, probably I shouldn’t question their i.’

  ‘Look at that. What a master I am, adopted by the jedi out of pity and probably grudge, left behind by my own droid guardian and used as a distra for him. Even my on was taken from me. Looking at my achievements from this perspective, I actually felt someitiful…’

  “Damn. I am stupid.” — ‘Even with my newfound knowledge and experience.’ — “Bah, no reason f over spilled milk. I decided I will think about it as a vacation!”

  ‘I started to pull off my boots, throw them on the floor, then sat up again in a cross-legged position, still on my bed.’

  “Let’s do something jedi like for once.” — ‘Without my sole I only meditate, still better than looking at these b walls. Oh, I got it, so this is why they don’t have anything io make me meditate. How devious, but you know what, you won this round.’

  ‘Thankfully, the infuriating side effects of the ritual are almost over. I am not that muddle-headed anymore. So I won’t start and speak out loud without realizing it that often.’

  ‘That is a big plus. Oh, I got an idea, let’s see, if they sense me. I am going to use fht with a partial spirit detat. This way, I will be able to look around the temple and search for a way out, too.’

  ‘To gain enough focus, I will have to enter into deep meditation, but I have to clear my mind first.’

  ‘About an hour ter, I could finally cast those force spells. They were very hard to activate as a child, but after casting them successfully it was easy to use them even at the same time.’

  ‘The partial spirit detat was a very high-level force teique. Normally, it was used in the middle of a fight to fuse highly force-sensitive enemies.’

  ‘The force presence of the teique be easily fused with the actual body of the user. This way creating a perfect opportunity for a decisive surprise attack, using it against not force sensitive people is useless sihere is no physical body to be seen or to actually hurt someone, only a force presehat the caster trol.’

  ‘Obviously, this force presence ot actually see, but if I use my fht spell on it, I will create the perfect spy.’

  ‘Now mind you, it ot really go that far to be used as a typical spy, but it is still far from useless. I think that I walk around most of the Jedi Temple with it easily.’

  ‘Now let’s see, I will walk through that wall, okay? I will try to hide the presence of the teique as much as possible, but stantly using three spells is very demanding.’

  ‘My forehead is already wet with perspiration; this may stretch my current abilities a bit after all.’

  ‘The teique was created with the purpose of radiating force preseherefore, it was very hard to hide it si’s going against its inal purpose. Not eveioning that the ritual's st remaining side effects were still present. Making me especially easy to get distracted.’

  ‘The smallest of quiver in my attention would be enough to alert the jedi, just as it did when I was being escorted to the Elders.’

  ‘Yet, I ’t cast the whole spirit detat, and even if I could, I wouldn’t! That teique is just stupid.’

  ‘You see and sehrough the eyes of your detached spirit, even fight with it. Sounds goht? No, because you die just the same too, and using it drains you stantly, not eveioning that to activate it you will have to burn a sizeable k of your force pool, and it will tio drain it even after that!’

  ‘That means you basically start the fight half drained and if the enemy realizes what you do, it simply drag out the battle until you are too drained and are forced to drop the teique disappearing from the battlefield.’

  ‘Not so good after all, right? Oh, and if you overextend without dispelling the teique even after you are too draio normally use it, it will feed on your life energy until there is no more, then you will die, such a charming teique.’

  ‘The only positive part is that you teleport with it to pces where you have been before, but again with bigger distanes greater strain on the body. With my momentary abilities, I could probably use it to appear in my base on Hoth, then a few seds ter my actual body would disie.’

  ‘Eh, I have to admit, I could not use this teique effectively even as an adult. It is hard to admit it, but there are a few sick force teiques that actually need an astonishing amount of midi-chlorian t. Those are for the lucky ones, I guess, like Revan. A smirk appeared on my face.’

  “Ah, just as the saying goes, with a big nose es great responsibilities.“

  ‘Anyway, you use your creativity and knowledge instead of raw power. You know what, my bined use of different force abilities has a siderably lower ce of actally killing myself!’

  ‘Well, they also have obvious restris. Like the distance, after going too far from my body, it simply dissipates. Oh, and if someone se, it be destroyed by siphoning the force preseh some basic dark side teiques, but who would do that in the middle of a Jedi Temple?’

  ‘Hah! Well, it also be dispelled forcefully, but that isn’t as effective because you simply move out of the way, while you ’t really run away from a siphoning attack, si attaches itself to the force presehe smart thing in that situation is to dispel it instantly. You lose the spell, but at least didn’t let your enemy gain power from siphoning it.’

  ‘In the meantime, I was looking around the corridors. If I remember correctly, the cil was somewhere this way. Let’s che them first.’

  ‘A few mier, it turned out that I remembered correctly. When I walked through the door of the cil room, it was closed but I was a force presence so who cares!’

  ‘The moment I entered, via slipping through the door’s matter, I immediately felt the o facepalm.’

  ‘By the force, they were also spying ohrough the camera pced in my room. Our habits are too simir for fort.’

  ‘The camera’s image rojected onto the tral holo-projector.’

  ‘Well, at least I won’t have to feel bad for spying on them, not that I would. Thankfully, fht doesn’t only include vision but voices too. So, I could hear what they were talking about, oh the skinhead was in the middle of his usual tirades. What a surprise…’

  “I am telling you, this girl means only ohing: trouble. You ’t really think about lettiay in the Jedi Order just like that. Especially not among the other padawans as a learner... She is a bad influence. I see that already. Nothing short of Skywalker… and one Skywalker is already more than I am willing to put up with.“

  ‘Then man paused for a few seds then tinued with the same iy.’

  “Being a jedi is a special privilege, not something we gave away to someone who breaks into our temple and steals from our archive! We have already searched for her descriptions through the entire jedi archive and we didn’t find a single information about her ever being affiliated with our order.”

  ‘Oh… crap. They worked that out a lot faster than I anticipated.’

  “She was rained in aemple. That means she has been thought by sate master who does not align with the beliefs of our system. Which is already shown in her openly rebellious as. She urposefully holding baformation, shamelessly throwing around the fact that she would not cooperate with us.”

  ‘This guy seriously called me rebellious... did he ever looked into a mirror?’

  “If worse es to worst, it might turn out that she is a sith apprentice sent to spy on us while exploiting our sympathy.”

  ‘Okay, master hairless is officially on my bcklist, no pun intended. Oh, now the uy actually started tue with him. What was his name? Kenobi, yeah, that’s it. He has a charming smile, but his personality is equally annoying if you let him speak for too long.’

  ‘Anyway, I listeo what he had to say to Master Hairless.’

  “Master Windu, calm down, please. It was only a theoretical possibility which we were mentioning. The girl shows immealent, and I am curious about her background, just as you are, no doubt. Regarding your st ent, surely you yourself don’t believe her being a sith apprentice sent to the Jedi Temple to spy walking in the main door. Surely they are not so desperate.”

  ‘I chuckled at that, while straining myself to keep trol over the delicate spells. Master Hairless answer didn’t g behind for long.’

  “Humph! The apple didn’t fall far from the tree. I see now where your apprentice learned his uncouth manners and distinct disrespect for his elders.”

  ‘Yoda chose that very moment to speak up with solemn words.’

  “Obi-Wan is right, Windu, and you are exaggerating. Don’t fet that we were the ones who ihem into our temple, hmm? The girl could be a victim of unfortunate circumstances.”

  ‘Obi-One tinued reinf the grandmaster’s stance.’

  “I agree, which is further proved by that I didn’t sense any hostility from her towards us. Even after I told her about those partially fabricated felonies, she supposedly itted.”

  “Hu-humph!” — ‘Said Yoda, creating the impression of stifled ughter.’

  “She obviously didn’t knoossessing a lightsaber in itself is not a crime. Using it is airely different matter.” — ‘Stated Kenobi with a somewhat guilty smile.’

  “Oh yes, that was an ingenious solution, I must admit.” — ‘Said Windu at st, letting part of his pent-up irritation go before he tinued.’

  “Making her activate the bde before the cil made this into a strictly jedi case, si also involves our sacred on. Otherwise, it would fall uhe jurisdi of the Corust Republic Justice System.”

  “It would be a worldwide otion.” — ‘Windu stated direly.’

  “Unknown, possibly separatist droid breaks into the jedi archives, then escapes in daylight.” — ‘Master Hairless practically spat out those words with a disgusted expression before tinuing.’

  “We ot let any of this informatio into the hands of any media outlets. We have already enough problems to deal with, as the e army demilitarization fas grow bigger by the day. I admit, I was relut at first too. But sihen many things have ged. I ’t fathom what those na?ve senators think. At this stage of the war, the only thing standiween the endless swarms of droids and us is the e army. ”

  ‘Obi-Oed defensively.’

  “Thank you, master, but please don’t mistake my duty towards the Jedi Order for enthusiasm in this situation. I am ly proud that I lied and exploited a child that had ailed knowledge of the current ws.”

  ‘Windu raised his hand to indicate that he uands.’

  ‘In the meantime, Yoda closed his eyes as a troubled expression slowly settled on his face, with still-closed eyes and a very dejected voice. He started to speak.’

  “Dark times we live in, that even the masters of our order have to sink to this level, to eveo the children. No sting system was ever built ohis war took more from us than we could ever possibly realize. Sometimes I wonder, even if we win the war, what will be left of our inal order, of our philosophies and teags.”

  ‘There was a solemn silen the room. Everyone was thinking over the words of the grandmaster while looking at my unmoving form in the middle of the hologram.’

  ‘A few mier, Kenobi broke the silence, also ging the dire of the versation.’

  “She looks like a bright child, yet she talks like an old man holding thousands of small grudges. She also has a unique aura and clearly knows her capabilities, able to adapt swiftly to new situations. Many traits that are rare even for jedi knights nowadays.”

  ‘After hearing Kenobi’s opinion, Windu also shared his thought, even if somewhat relutly.’

  “Rash, too ho for her own good, proud and disrespectful at the level of Skywalker, and one Skywalker is already more than I would wish to handle.”

  ‘Obi-Wan added in a teasing tone.’ — “Yes, you have already mentiohat part…” — ‘His ent earned himself a burning gre. Which he reciprocated with a disarming smile, causing Windu to sigh.’

  ‘Master Hairless reflected over his sentence for a while. Then he finally tinued his words.’

  “Yet I must admit that precise trol over her force aura is an obvious sign of incredible talent or the result of years of hard work, knowledge, and experieaking into sideration her age, it should be the first one.”

  ‘Nope… pletely wrong… Master Hairless… I thought while h in ay er of the room.’

  ‘Hearing the evaluation of the two masters, Yoda’s ears slowly started to rise as a small grandfatherly smile appeared on his wrinkled face. At st, he opened his eyes to look at the image of the girl before him.’

  “She khat we would sense if she lied, but she could not tell the truth. I felt both spite and fear inside her. An iing mix of emotions in such a situation. That was the reason why she didn’t answer. It was not meant to disrespect us. Quite the opposite, in fact. We were simply blind to the bigger picture, through our own prejudices.”

  ‘That sentence surprised the other two masters. Their gaze also wao the girl’s meditating form in the holoprojector.’

  ‘Yoda tio state his observations, while the other two masters carefully listeo every word.’

  “Her eyes, hmmm, are not the eyes of a child. No, those eyes, carefully hidden uhe fa?ade of a youngling, are not ones of i curiosity. They are deep with raw knowledge. How to expin this, I know not… But I fear that something terrible happened with the girl, something that will burden her for her entire life.”

  ‘Another minute of heavy silence passed, before Kenobi asked a new question.’

  “What kind of meditation practice is this? She is sitting without any movement, yet she became almost entirely drenched from perspiration i few moments.”

  ‘Yoda focused on the girl’s straining form. Something was strange, he decided to open himself to the flow of the living force. And a warning came immediately. There was something, someone hidden here, but he could not locate it, he decided to try a more direct approach. He stated calmly.’

  “Show yourself.”

  ‘The other two masters were taken aback by this sudden warning from the grandmaster. Each of them jumped up from their seat, instantly igniting their bdes, looking around carefully, and simultaneously sensing the area with the careful use of force.’

  ‘I was also surprised as I got too immersed in their versation.’

  ‘Without hesitation, I hastily dispelled my force avatar, then my vision jumped bato my body. My eyes opened wide. As I begin to feel the waves of exhaustion suddenly crashing down on me, I started to forcefully breathe in big mouthfuls of air.’

  ‘Damn, this bined use of different force abilities really took their toll on my body. My clothes were totally drenched… Breathe. Damn, breathe… I dropped on my bad tried to trol my breathing. It was hard, but I succeeded.’

  ‘hing I noticed were my somewhat trembling arms. They started to feel awfully cold. A clear sign of drained vitality. I y down on the bed pletely stopping any force use.’

  ‘Some would think that eling healing energies to heal your exhaustion is a good idea. It is generally true, but if you are exhausted, your mental powers to a level where it started to drain your life force, even if just a little, doing that could be categorized as a suicide attempt. At this moment, normal rest was the only possible solution or asking another force user to heal you. ‘

  Ba the cil room, Master Yoda’s ears started to droop slowly while the other two masters were carefully looking around the hall, trying to sehe presence of this intruder.

  Master Windu and master Kenobi were also able to sehis fn preseer the grandmaster’s warning, but only for a split sed, as it suddenly dispersed as if it was never beeo begin with.

  Yoda was about to fall bato his deep and troubled thoughts. There were many things, many mysteries appearing oer the other.

  Before he could get back to his meditation, his eyes caught onto the sprawled out and wheezing form of one of those so-called troubles. He was about to let this thought slide, then the realization came. An uain idea popped up in his mind. Ohat he reflexively wao drht away… si sounded almost impossible. It would most likely embarrass him in front of them and nothing else.

  But what if? What if he is right?

  Why would he hide his intuition from his fellow cil members? They were his friends and family, after all. Is it possible that he did not trust in their judgment, or was he too proud? A possibility, but it was something else this time. He was afraid, afraid of failure as a grandmaster of the order.

  Fear often bound his deaking, the possibility to lose the respect of the cil, his fellow jedi. They often looked at him with reverence of someone all-knowing, all-powerful, but only he kruly how false and misguided those thoughts were.

  Sometimes it was easier to a this belief, to act as if it was true, that he was all-knowing. This made him more fident, but this fidence had already started to shadow his judgment. I am too proud to see unlikely possibilities. This behavior must be ged, he decided; let’s take small steps at a time.

  The other masters were waiting for him to end this cil meeting. Instead, he purely acted on his instinct for the first time in years.

  “Obi-roject the rec of one of the camera’s footage in the cil room, together with the camera in Nizzal’s room. Synize their time and rewind it back about two to five minutes.”

  Obi-Wan was very surprised by the uncharacteristic request from the grandmaster. Master Windu also raised one of his eyebrows.

  heless, Kenobi followed his request without a sed thought. After a few minutes of maniputiohe activator buttons, everything was ready. He started the videos, side by side. When they reached the part where the grandmaster’s warning happened, all of them, even Yoda, were somewhat shocked.

  It was in the exact same moment when the girl suddenly awakened from her meditation, that the force presehey sensed ceased to be. That could not be a simple ce.

  After the initial shock wore off, Master Windu voiced his thoughts.

  “This is way too perfect to be a ce.”

  Kenobi whistled heartily.

  “Well-well, I have to say that we highly uimated our little guest. Now, I am truly curious who her master is.“

  Windu watched the utterly exhausted girl. Than said sarcastically.

  “From what I have seen, it could be your former padawan Kenobi. Who else would have the stupid fideo spy on a cil meeting?”

  Kenobi reacted with the charming smile of a politi.

  “Oh thank you, but I heard, master Windu, that you are not oo talk in this regard.“

  Windu’s head whipped with a horrified expression towards the seat of the randmaster. Who was sitting in his seat in a meditative position, eyes closed, buried in his own thoughts.

  “Each of us were children once. Fet this, we must not.” — Came the suct decratioually.

  Hearing this, Windu stood up from his seat and began to walk out of the cil room without waiting for the grandmaster to officially end the meeting. Quite a disrespe a man of his position.

  Before he left, he said o sentehout looking back.

  “I will send a healer to that youngling before she chokes on air. “

  The door closed behind him automatically.

  The other two masters left behind were smiling stupidly to themselves. In that fsh of a rare moment, each of them looked much-much younger as their powerful yet happy force presence slowly expanded around the temple as every force-sensitives began to rex.

  That day, even the force itself seemed to smile around the temple. Creating a small, peaceful isnd in the middle of the chaotic city-p called Corust.