Some Darker Reality

Rendal's creeping darkness had been a hindrance to him for the duration of his Jedi life even before when his life was devoted to the training of becoming a Jedi. The only real difference between how he felt now and how he had felt then was that he knew now that other sides and other things existed in the universe. As a Jedi, Rendal had been able to travel about going on missions and interacting with worlds not bogged down by the crippling codes and conformist Jedi codes, which only existed to prevent one from facing the truest trials of life, loss, and closeness to others. Culture's thrived in ways other than stealing the most gifted children away in the name of keeping the universe's peace. The Jedi robbed the genius from all cultures and put them to work advancing their own cause and empowering their own order, keeping the expansion of civilization and cultures to a state of slowed growth.

Though these thoughts could not be made to match that of the rivals of the Jedi, those who stood on the other side and had the power to match them, the Sith. Rendal was unable to align himself with those who let discipline come second to the personal ambitions of those who were of higher rank. Sith who prided themselves in combat prowess and vicious brutality, yet who fight most of their battles in the political arena with their own kind. Rendal could not join them, even if he could despise what the Jedi meant to the galaxy he could not embrace the kind of useless and self-promoting society that the Sith Empire would turn the galaxy into. Rendal assumed that made him a Dark Jedi and with an audible sigh he paused for a moment.

On his way out he had left a note for his master to find. He was the one within the Jedi Order that knew him best and whom he could relate to most easily, if only because they had lived together for a time when Rendal was a Padawan. The note informed him of his decision to leave Coruscant in his own ship and let the Force guide him to some planet where he could meditate on the Force and seek a purpose for the higher purpose he had always sought to serve in his lifetime and Rendal had then began his last walk through the Jedi Temple before he left for meditative exile as a 'Dark Jedi'.

On his tour through the temple he stopped briefly outside of the Council Chambers and circled around through the library, looking up a few last questions that he knew where to look to find the answers to, for his final time here he wanted to be sure that he was ready to leave when he did, however, he now toured through the last place he wanted to see before he left the Temple for his transport was the Great Hall. Massive and expansive it showed what the Jedi were becoming, an extravagant and expansive order. Seeing it was enough to re-affirm his decision to leave as he began to walk again, toward the other end of the Great Hall, which would connect him to his ship.

Hamilcar on the other hand found himself a master of his own darkness to merely vent out in need that it were building up, to direct it as nothing more than steam to let loose which reflected well in his style of fighting. Impassively it was through a note he had scried his student's intention to desert if anything, and to let his personal darkness give away. To put it lightly, the words that exited his mouth were reminiscent to "The fuck?" But that's only because he was intoxicated on spices for the while as his elated high drawn out to a close finality and finishing as it ran its course.

He read throughout the note as he was actually on his way to find his student when he read through the whole thing. He had FELT his pupil's presence in the temple, the bond forged out of the fires of combat and fatherly relationship he held had told him he'd be here, and he was, and the note was fresh at that. Discarding the data slate, he'd begin to sprint towards the presence in the temple, his apprentice's presence.

It was by luck that he had come through to stand as an obstacle between the apprentice and his ship as the two were separated by a vast gap. Oddly the temple was deserted, but it didn't matter, he had to confront the Nish. Strapping his thumbs in between his belt and waist, resting them there as he stepped in front of the man, space still present and about five standard lightsaber lengths away from one another as his eyes furrowed and his silver eyes pondered on Rendal, whom swirled with a never before darkness, amidst the great hall of serenity and peace flanked by two rows of pillars in each side lining up neatly atop the marble-esque floor. Behind him was a high arch which led out to the transports, but Hamilcar was intent on relieving Rendal of leave, even though his motives were explained quite well in the note. He stood with a sizable swathes of space around him as well equal to the distance between him and Rendal in a circular diameter, having chosen his position well rather as the vastness of the hall served to act as his arena of footwork.

"So you finally give up, Arstor? What? Did the pressure get to you? That you think you were the only one with internal darkness? That somehow, you couldn't change the Jedi Order from within, that you'd desert and become something you'll regret? Even though your intentions are pure to seek something better?" Hamilcar asked, taking a single step forward, sternly spoken with a baritone ruggedness to his low pitched voice, gruff as he were, "It doesn't have to be that way, Rendal, I've seen MANY going down your path with sheer disillusionment, and I've had to put them down after how far gone they were, becoming slaves to their own lusts and vices, nothing more than beasts, hollow and with an unkindled flame. I won't cite things like second chances, no, this boshtet nerf dropping business has always been dirty, but you're better than this. I can pretend that I hadn't read your intentions to desert, and we can go back to whom we were, Hell, by the Force's nethers, I'll teach you some meditative exercises I neglected to teach, a bad part on my end, we can work something out."

Rendal had been taking his final few steps toward the transport when he felt a disturbance of the ever-present part of his mind connected within the entity known as The Force. Before his former master had even reached what would likely become their battlefield Rendal was aware that the man was coming, such was the advantage of The Force. To make those connected aware of things that are going to happen anyway as soon as they become completely unable to change the outcome. Whatever was going to happen here was already decided, all that had to happen was for the events to play out between them. It would probably have been a trivial matter for Rendal to have made it away from the Temple and the planet entirely had he put all of his speed into it and forced his way through any obstacles. However, Rendal remained too devout to good to simply force his will upon anyone who happened to be in the way and ironically it was this devotion that led he and his former master to this standoff.

Soon after Rendal had these feelings he was stopped by his former master as he had expected. Had the man been able to see under his dark and various facial coverings he would have found that Rendal noiselessly chuckled at the sheer absurdity of it all. His master had actually come to stand between he and the way out of the Temple, seeming to be guarding the transports as if he expected Rendal to simply ignore the man whom he now had mixed feelings of. One who had saved him yet brought him into this hypocritical nightmare known as the Jedi Order, one who had brought him the peace of the light and the awe of The Force itself yet was a Master within an order dedicated principles that had long ago turned away from a simple homage to the light side of the force into an independent military with a clear favoritism toward the Galactic Republic.

Rendal stood his ground after he had reached an alignment between two pillars on either side of him just as his former master came to a stop an equal distance from him. The two had long been friends and even longer been allies, their anticipation and unwillingness to fight as a result was not a deduction that Rendal took lightly as he listened to his old friend speak. Speak of the dark and light the way a Jedi would, speak of forgiveness and forgetting the way a Jedi would and the man even surprised Rendal when he spoke of his own failures. It was not something that Hamilcar was known to do and the gesture was not lost on Rendal, though it did not shake his resolve as Rendal quietly and motionlessly awaited Hamilcar to finish saying everything that he had to say before responding himself. Rendal owed him at least that much respect.

"Your words betray the truth in mine my old friend and master. It is not the Jedi way to forget the transgressions of someone who would leave but rather to convert them back to the light. It's also not the Jedi way to allow someone with dark intentions, especially one with dark intentions within the force itself, to go free. Hamilcar, my friend, I am determined to leave with all of my resolve and willing to go through any means in order to do so. I would hope that a maverick among the Jedi such as yourself would stand aside but I can feel that you will not." Rendal sighed without making any effort to conceal the sound or slouching motion that accompanied it, all the while through Hamilcar's speaking, through his own, even through his sigh keeping his eyes glued to Hamilcar's lightsaber. "Hamilcar Lect, you will have to make the decision either against me or against the Order in which you serve." Rendal's tone had changed from the calm and relaxed demeanor of a man who's heart was heavy with guilt for leaving to that of a man full of resolve. Inspired by his own words, Rendal moved his hands to his belt and placed them there, his right hanging just in front of his own lightsaber, shielding it from Hamilcar's view.