Setting: Tython Sanctuary | Jedi Briefing Hall | Lotho Minor | Dathomir
Date: 24 BBY
One Month Later – The Sanctuary Awakens
Tython bloomed.
What began as broken stone and scattered ideas was now a sanctuary with growing classrooms, Force gardens, and meditation arcs linked by floating crystal bridges. The Circles had begun to self-regulate. Knights trained apprentices without fear of reprimand. Mandalorian advisors worked with the Guardians to refine protective duties without aggression.
In the central planning dome, Cain addressed Fay, Plo Koon, Shaak Ti, Adi Gallia, Obi-Wan, and others. An updated galactic projection map shimmered behind him.
"I'm leaving," Cain began calmly, "But I won't be going alone."
He paused and said I'm going to "Lotho Minor."
The silence in the room shifted—tightened.
Obi-Wan stepped forward. Why are you going to that junk planet?
A manuscript of how that Naboo sends their waste and trash to that planet. I would lie saying I had a vision through the voice of a red and black skinned Zabrak screaming out in rage saying your name Obi-wan.
Obi-wan face got serious "That should be possible I cut him in half"
"You should know with the "Force" anything is possible." I said.
You think he's alive?" Anakin said looking at Cain
"I know he is." Cain met Obi-Wan's eyes gently.
Anakin stirred beside Cain, visibly tense. Fay asked, "And what would you do if you find him?" My voice was steady. "Bring him back. Heal him. Give him a choice." "I will go with Anakin and Derran to Lotho Minor," Cain continued. "Fay, I need you to go to Dathomir."
He looked at her carefully. "Take Barriss, Serra, and Seris." Serra raised an eyebrow. "You want us to go to the Nightsisters?" "I want you to talk to Mother Talzin," Cain said. "She's his mother. She deserves to know." Shaak Ti stepped forward. "Nightsisters is not one to deal in peace." The deal with the dark side of the force.
I said that is not true it is dark to you because you do not understand it like they do. That doesnt mean it's dark but that doesnt mean it's good I said. Just different.
" Although She might be hard to speak to," Cain said, "if we offer her honesty she might just listen but we need her to do more than listen."
Obi-Wan stepped forward again. "Maul's a killer. He destroyed lives." Cain didn't flinch. I know Obi-wan but I want give him a chance when no one believes in him. "Just like the council with Anakin.
You didn't have teach him after Qui-gon died. But you still did regardless of what others said. If anyone deserves a second chance, shouldn't it be the one who never got a first?"
"I want to see him." Anakin said
Obi-wan looked down, then nodded slowly.
Cain continued. "He's was raised his entire life to be nothing but a weapon. That doesn't mean he has to stay one I believe he has so much potential to be more."
Cain turned to the holotable and brought up another display—a glowing outline of a small, lizard-like creature curled around a branch. "The ysalamiri of the planet Myrkr. They can push back the Force. Create a bubble where it cannot be used. Kamino's medics have theorized that Force trauma, especially in enhanced minds, results in neoromantic feedback loops what they called Force dementia."
Bo-Katan stepped forward from the edge of the room. "I've read your reports. The ysalamiri neutralize the Force and, in theory, halt the overload. That's why they're deadly to clones with organic chips—cutting off their connection causes neural collapse in enhanced units."
Cain nodded. "That's exactly why we'll use them. Temporarily. With Maul under sedation, cut off from the Force, we can repair his body without triggering a mental collapse." And for other medical procedures that require cloning limbs. As well as other idea's I'm having but that's a discussion for another day.
Bo-Katan accepted the datapad Cain handed her.
"Take your best people to Myrkr and then Kamino. Deliver these creatures using foreign medical protocols. Tell them it's for the new cloning project—something they already believe we're funding." Bo smirked. "They'll ask questions." "Tell them it's for protection," Cain said. "That's not a lie."
In the following hours, the sanctuary became a flurry of motion.
Barriss quietly prepared herbs and mental stabilizers for Fay's journey to Dathomir. Derran gathered stealth field gear and underground mapping tools for Lotho Minor. Anakin meditated, trying to calm his anger and anxiety.
Seris approached Cain as he reviewed ship specs. "You really believe he can be redeemed?"
Cain looked up slowly. "I believe falling to the dark side is not the end of someone's story."
She nodded. "I believe you all will bring him back." Cain smiled faintly. "Let's just not die trying to doing it."
Some Jedi say once darkness claims a soul, it never lets go.
But I've walked through ancient memories and voices of those who tried… and failed.
Revan fell. So did Bastila. Ulic Qel-Droma (Anikin even Luke fell). But they came back. They chose to come back. Maul never had a choice. He was a weapon sharpened in the dark—never told he could be more.
And I have to believe the Force didn't show me him still breathing in that junkyard just to let him die there. So we're going to find him. And we're going to offer something no one has ever offered him before. A way out.
The stench of rot and rusted memory filled the air.
Cain, Anakin, and Derran stepped carefully through the jagged steel wreckage of Lotho Minor, where derelict ships, discarded droids, and forgotten weapons were slowly being eaten by a world that thrived on decay.
There was no sun here.
Only a dull amber glow seeping from vents far above, casting everything in hues of dying firelight.
"We're close," Cain murmured, narrowing his golden eyes.
The Force whispered, fragments of pain and rage clinging to the rusted air like mold. But through it, Cain could feel the tremor—the fracture in reality that only he could see.
The shatterpoints pointed the way.
A wound, waiting to break or heal.
"This way," I said, pointing toward a collapsed mining rig half-buried in acidic sludge and shattered droid frames. They descended into a gaping, metallic wound carved into the bedrock. Broken walls glowed faintly with heat and damp filth. The smell was worse here. Something between burnt metal and animal musk.
And then, Cain heard it.
Breathing.
Shallow. Erratic. Almost inhuman.
A flicker of motion. A scraping limb.
There—hunched in the corner like a wounded animal, pieces of scavenged cybernetics still clinging to his twisted body like a serpent and a spider it was Maul.
His horns were jagged and long. His skin pale from exhaustion and sickness. His eyes burned—but without focus. He muttered to himself in shattered tones:
"…Kenobi… Kenobi… Must… finish…"
Cain crouched behind a broken beam, motioning for silence.
"There he is."
Derran exhaled. "That's Maul I thought he be scarier he barley looks alive or sane."
Cain nodded. "That's what makes him dangerous."
Anakin stared at the huddled form, his hand twitching near his saber.
The boy who once afraid of Maul. The same one who trained every day under Obi-Wan, imagining that moment when he might face the killer that haunted both their steps. who took the path of the Guardian to beat people like Maul.
Cain could feel it. "Let's do this," he said, slowly. Derran stepped back. "I'll climb to high ground and initiate Battle Meditation. "Strengthen you and weaken him."
Cain and Anakin nodded. "Be safe," Cain whispered.
"I'm always safe," Derran replied, disappearing up the debris wall like a shadow.
Cain turned to Anakin. "We're not here to kill him." Anakin's jaw tightened. "I know even though we should I know it wouldn't be right. Even though killing him like this feel like this would be a mercy for him." His voice was cold. Controlled. But his hand moved close to igniting his saber.
Anakin stared at Maul, who still hadn't noticed them—still mumbling, eyes unfocused, clawing at the floor like a beast searching for a buried heart. "He scared me," Anakin said softly. "As a kid. I was eight when he murder Qui-Gon I know there was nothing I could have done. But It… broke Obi-Wan. I pushed myself every day after that, just so I could be strong enough to stand in his shadow."
Cain placed a hand on Anakin's shoulder. "This isn't about vengeance. "I know," Anakin said. "But let me try first." Cain studied him—his breath, his aura, his Force rhythm. Then he stepped back.
"Strike with purpose. Move with truth." Anakin nodded. "Of course."
Maul stirred suddenly. His head jerked up. Eyes wide. Red. Wild.
"KENOBI!"
The scream was raw enough to shake the rust off the walls.
He sprang like a creature from a nightmare, metal legs screeching, teeth bared and claws.
Anakin didn't flinch. He stepped forward into the attack lightsaber ignited, a wall of violet light piercing the gloom.
Cain's heart surged with hope.
This was the moment that mattered not for vengeance but the first step in redemption.