TARGET INDEX POINT: CONTROL IN ANGER

day 72; session 1
[The Jedi Temple still burns; the sting of smoke hangs heavy in the air, shades the room a little darker, works breath just a little faster. Obi-Wan doesn't know which chamber this might be--does not have the time to look around and figure it out, really. But he does know that he's not alone, because General Grievous had always been impossible to miss, that towering mass of plated bone-pale durasteel and cold murderous intent. This is a Grievous that does not cough and wheeze, as Obi-Wan had known Grievous to do in the later years of the war; this is a Grievous that hasn't been blasted apart from the inside out by a blaster in Obi-Wan's hand, either. This is a Grievous that stands tall and intact, and laughs when Obi-Wan looks upon him, and in one hand the general grips the neck of a young boy, surely barely at the start of his padawan tenure, surely one of the very few to have possibly survived the onslaught of the clone raid upon the Temple earlier. The boy struggles, breath whimpering, feet dangling a foot off the floor. And Grievous laughs.]

Ah, Kenobi! We meet yet again. I see you cannot get enough of destroying me. Perhaps I should be flattered!

Well, destroying you once was quite satisfactory enough all by itself. Must I do it again?

Must you? Must you? [Grievous laughs again, and the boy shakes.] So eager you were, to do it the first time! Eager enough to run all the way to Utapau, to meet me! Eager enough to leave your little apprentice behind. Was it worth it, Kenobi? Was it worth destroying me, when you could have been back there with his worthless skin? Is it worth it now? Allow me to show you what it is you did.

[And the boy cries out, and the boy is Anakin, small and sandy-haired and missing his mother, and Grievous snaps his neck with a twist of his wrist, tosses the limp tiny body away to the side. And something in Obi-Wan's chest snaps, just the same--and then Obi-Wan is moving, no plan to form in mind, no words to say in the great angry shout that he finds emerging from his own throat, lightsaber blazing to life in his hand.

General Grievous wields four lightsabers of fallen Jedi at once, with the four arms he has at his disposal. The biomechanical gyros which work his sprawling limbs allow him to move at a speed that is impossible to track with the human eye, with a strength to cripple even the thickest blast doors. He can deliver twenty strikes per second and faster, with his stolen lightsabers, each strike a different angle, weaving fiery cages that have incinerated many a Jedi. Only a master of the defensive art of Soresu is capable of blocking such blows at such a speed; but Soresu mastery requires focus, and patience, and serenity of the mind.

Obi-Wan has none of these things, here and now.

The mad dash ends in the very first delivered blow, a lightning flare splitting his head--and the world falls away, and he fails.]

day 72, several hours later; session 2
[The Jedi Temple burns yet again, more angrily now, smoke thick in the halls. Obi-Wan expects Grievous, steels himself, promises himself to move before what happened before happens again. But it's not Grievous that emerges through the haze this time, face flickering into visibility as a lone red lightsaber ignites through the smoke. Darth Maul grins at him, legs intact and murder in his eyes.]

Kenobi. You know...I am quite surprised, truly. Seeing you here. Do you not have--other loyalties to attend to, these days?

[The insult not even spoken yet still stirs in the pit of Obi-Wan's chest. He pins it down. Breathe in, breathe out. (Breathing is difficult, here, with all this smoke--) Obi-Wan frowns.] I'd think not, no. My loyalty is to the Jedi. And we will always fight against your kind. [His own lightsaber ignites, in his hand; Obi-Wan brings it up to grip at his side, eyes trained on Maul. Not this time. Not again. And yet--]

Oh? But the Jedi are no more. [The voice tilts, sneering and amused. Maul bolts forward, striking out like a viper, familiar; Obi-Wan parries, parries again, blinks and squints through the smoke and tries to reach to the Force to guide him, but all the while Maul is still talking, as Maul has always talked, in that voice--] And what left for you? A dirty hovel in the Outer Rim, last I heard--is it true? No wonder you decided to take up that contract, really. I suppose, after awhile, even the most noble of Jedi are allowed to turn their heads if a planet or two is destroyed.

[Obi-Wan sets his teeth. He aims a strike that glances shakily off Maul's parry, narrowly avoids his returning blow by a hair, tries to kick at a knee that slips just out of his reach.] That's--that's hardly the truth! I agreed to no such thing, I--

What, then? One planet already destroyed under your hands. What did you do, Kenobi? Why didn't you try to stop it? My, my, whatever would your Master think of this? [Obi-Wan aims another kick; Maul bats it aside with his free arm, throws out his hand, and then Obi-Wan is flying. He hits the floor rolling several times, coughs as he inhales a particularly large amount of smoke, scrambles to get back on his feet, but Maul is already there, and lands another kicking blow to his head. Obi-Wan gasps, reeling, pain flashing behind his eyes--throws out an arm of his own, and sends Maul back a few feet, far enough for Obi-Wan to pull himself up and cast out for his lightsaber. But Maul recovers, and Maul is still speaking, yellow eyes flashing with the bright malice of delight at his own words.] Perhaps that's why you cannot hear your Master now. You're so incompetent his ghost must advise you from beyond the grave, so touchingly--but now you've not heard even a whisper, since that contract. Perhaps he knows. Perhaps he's...disappointed? Perhaps he'll not speak to you again--as it should be, since it was I who killed him while you could only watch and feel helpless. Are you ever not going to be a helpless sham of a Jedi, Kenobi?

[Obi-Wan stares at Maul, frame folding, focus narrowing, something hot and aching at the back of his throat. Hatred is not the Jedi way (anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering), but Maul draws forward now with that grin still in place and those words still ringing through the air, and Obi-Wan's hands shake in their clutch around his lightsaber's hilt. The Force lingers out of his reach, the light impossible to find in the smoke and the rage. It diminishes his blows, weakens his parries, and Maul simply laughs as he drives his lightsaber right through Obi-Wan's forehead. He fails.]

day 75; session 3
[The Jedi Temple does not burn anymore. Instead it is still, and silent--a silence thick and sickening. Most of the interior lights are broken, and blaster marks pock the walls and ceilings--there are Jedi everywhere, lying where they had fallen trying to defend their home. Obi-Wan does not look upon the bodies as he walks, steps silent on marble floors. He searches for a long while, not knowing what he'll find this time, instead expecting anything and everything. But still, following the darkness tugging at his senses, he doesn't expect the form that he does find, standing with back to the Jedi Council chamber's entrance and hands folded placidly, gazing at the scenery of Coruscant through wide windows.

Palpatine turns to face him, the newly-gaunt features of the HoloNet's capture in the flesh, and ice closes a fist around Obi-Wan's heart. ...This is not real. This is a simulation which learns its subject's weaknesses well. Obi-Wan had told himself this repeatedly, in the last two days after his first few sessions in the Black Box before, mustering up the will to enter yet again. Out on the Neheda, the past long behind him, it had been easy to convince himself of this. But now the past surrounds him, terrible and everywhere, and all pain stems from the man opposite him, and Obi-Wan is lighting his lightsaber even before he speaks now, ice in his heart and his limbs and his breath.]

You. [He points to lightsaber to Palpatine's forehead; the tip of it shakes.] You. The deception who lives. But not for long.

Oh? How very bold of you, to say such things. I had not taken you to be so uncouth before, Master Kenobi. [Palpatine tilts his head idly, every word careful and deliberate and utterly at ease; such enunciation had eased many a political squabble, had swayed many a heart to many a cause. It only tightens Obi-Wan's grip on his lightsaber all the more.] Things change.

Indeed they do. Oh, yes, indeed they do. [The gaunt man smiles.] Young Skywalker, in particular--it is quite marvelous, is it not? How much he's changed--

[The ice fractures. Obi-Wan moves--uses the cold to his advantage (the cold is better than the hot, from last time, easier to numb against) and draws upon its blankness to call the Force to his side, to move with speed that blinds. But Darth Sidious is faster. Red fountains to life from the latter's own fist, meeting blue easily, almost negligently. Obi-Wan presses forward, strength poured into blows, centered in the frigid cold, but he is matched strike for strike and more, finds himself losing ground before he's even started. Sidious sweeps at his defenses as one might bat aside a fly, a black storm bearing down on a lone house in a field. His very presence smothers the Light; Obi-Wan can barely breathe, and his enemy only laughs, as the last two had before. Laughs, and talks, and knows--] Still you fight for him! I cannot imagine why. You would not fight for him before. Where were you when he needed you, Master Kenobi? He knew you would not help him. And that is why he left you. That is why he joined me. Lord Vader knew what he would become, at my side--the choice was his. Still you would deny him this?

You lie! You--you lie! [The ice fractures all the more. Obi-Wan drives his lightsaber for Sidious's throat, finds it flicked out of the way by another streak of red, but he persists, breath catching, fighting as desperately against the burning in his heart as he does the darkness towering before him. Yoda had not wanted him to fight Sidious. Yoda had not--]

What have I to lie about? Look into your heart, Master Kenobi. You know it to be true. Yet still you would deny it--just as you deny yourself, as all Jedi do in their precious ideals. Do you wonder why it is, that Yoda failed to destroy me? Yoda is the font of your Light Side. But the light cannot destroy me any longer. [An extended, clawing hand, lazy in its gesture; Obi-Wan finds himself thrown off his feet, and into the wall behind him, a slam that punches out breath. Breath that he cannot regain--and he grasps at a grip around his throat that's not there, as he's lifted into the air, and Sidious's hand closes into a fist. He strides forward, robes billowing behind him, darkness trailing him deeper than any shadow.] The Sith have changed. The Jedi have not. But will you? [A flick of his wrist; Obi-Wan flies sideways, tumbles headfirst into a row of council seats, gasping and coughing as he struggles to return to his feet. And still Sidious advances.] You are angry. That is not the Jedi way, Kenobi--is it? But the Jedi way will not help you now. Will you change? Will you...embrace it?

[Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering. Such lessons are all that Obi-Wan has ever known. He regains his footing on legs that tremble, summons his dropped lightsaber back to his hand but fumbles in lighting it again; he glares back up past the blade at the darkness that approaches, and he cannot imagine that he would ever embrace anything to do with that storm, that deception which has destroyed almost everything he's known--] No. I will not. I will never.

[Sidious pauses in his steps, and tilts his head to the side again. Lipless mouth curls into something that might have been a smile, once.]

That is why you fail.

[And then Sidious is behind him, and red fire bursts through Obi-Wan's chest.]