EXT. RAINFOREST - DAY
Zull races through the heart of Dania VII's untouched rainforest, running with the grace and speed of an agile gazelle. To cope with the humid climate of the forest, she has traded in her black bodysuit for a pair of tan shorts and tank top, allowing the sweat on her toned arms, legs, and midriff to glisten under the sunlight. Through all the hard work she is putting her body through, her breathing remains calm and even.
Soon, she breaks through the trees and comes to the edge of a ravine. Taking a great leap, she lands on a dead log sitting on the edge of the ravine then catapults herself high up into the air, taking her across the ravine to the other side. Hitting the ground feet-first, she somersaults across the red-orange grass then springs back up, taking off into a run again.
Entering a thick cover of trees, Zull takes a running leap and scampers up one of the thick trunks until she comes to the first thick branch. She then proceeds to jump tree-to-tree, using the Force to guide her to the safest landing point on each massive plant.
Reaching the last of the towering red-brown trees, the former Meketrex priestess finds herself looking down into a sheltered gully, within which stand black basalt ruins. Taking out her lightsaber, she ignites it and uses it to cut one end of a thick vine from the tree. Then, deactivating the lightsaber and replacing it on her person, she takes hold of the vine and launches herself off the tree, swinging all the way down to the gully below.
Once she reaches a safe distance, she releases the vine and allows herself to free-fall the rest of the way down. Using the Force, she directs herself to a large pond, and with a large splash, she lands. Rising up out of the water with the grace of a swan, she makes her way out of the pond and begins walking toward the nearest ruin.
PRE VIZSLA: (O.S.) You've arrived. I'm glad you could make it, Zull.
Turning toward the sound of the voice, she finds Vizsla seated up on a half-crumbled stone wall. Like Zull, he has ditched his Mandalorian regalia for more convenient clothing -- in his case, a simple pair of brown pants; his naked torso bears countless scars from countless battles.
PRE VIZSLA: (cont'd) It's exhilarating, isn't it? The sounds of the animals and the water rushing, the smells of the flowers and wet earth, the feel of the grass and soil under your feet, the flow of the wild air passing over you -- this is what it means to be in tune with all living things, to be one with the living Force. It is here where you find the divine; not in a sterile academy or a closed-in temple, but in nature, where life exists open and unchained.
ZULL: (closes her eyes and breathes in deep) I can feel the Breath flow through this place. It is incredibly strong here.
PRE VIZSLA: These ruins were built thousands of years ago by a race of powerful magi allied with the Force. When they were pristine and new, these buildings served as focusing lenses, conduits for the Force. Even now, long after the builders have died away and their magnificent works crumbled into dust, sites like these still retain their power.
ZULL: Is that why you're here?
PRE VIZSLA: (nods) I found this world a long time ago, when I was still a Jedi and an apprentice to my mistress. Even then, I recognized the significant this world held, and when I joined forces with Death Watch, it was I who suggested we make this our capital.
ZULL: You were a Jedi?
PRE VIZSLA: A lifetime ago, yes.
ZULL: You never told me that.
PRE VIZSLA: I'd never got around to telling you before now. (stands up) Let me join you, and I can tell you the rest.
Crouching down slightly, Vizsla leaps off the wall, landing beside Zull. They then begin to walk on towards one of the ruined temples.
PRE VIZSLA: I was born seventy-four years ago on the third moon of Abdju, before the Clone Wars, back when the Empire was still the Republic. (beat) As a child, I was often sick. My parents tried their best to take care of me, but they were poor farmers on a poor world ... they couldn't do much. All they could do was pray, and that was what they did -- when I was burning with fever, when I was vomiting from nausea, they prayed. (beat) Then one day, their prayers were answered; from the heart of the Republic came a Jedi, a knight working on behalf of the Acquisition Division of the Coruscanti Order. She came to my village, and there she discovered me -- a small boy of six, weak and sick to the point of death. (beat) Normally, the Coruscanti Jedi do not accept children over five years of age for training, but an exception was made in my case as I didn't have much time left to me. (beat) So, in the hands of my new teacher, I was taken from Abdju III, taken from my parents, and brought to one of the Inner Rim worlds, where I was immediately placed into medical care and nursed to full health.
ZULL: It sounds to me that without their intervention, you would have died. Why do you hate the Jedi so much?
PRE VIZSLA: When I was separated from my parents, I doubt either of them truly knew what that meant. My mistress had made it clear to them that the Order didn't accept older children into their ranks, but she had failed to mention that once children were taken away for training, they were never allowed to see their parents again. There was to be no sending of letters or transmissions -- no communication or contact of any kind.
ZULL: Didn't you try to contact them anyway?
PRE VIZSLA: I had been taken from them at a young age, and my training kept me occupied, so my thoughts of them went to the back of my mind and sat there, collecting dust until I barely remembered them at all. (beat) That changed when I was twenty-five, when my brother -- a brother I had never known -- managed to make contact with me. From him I had learned that my parents had tried to get in touch with me for years, had tried to convince the Jedi Council to allow us to meet, but that they had been denied every time.
ZULL: What did you do then?
PRE VIZSLA: Then, I did nothing. (beat) I was still ensnared in Jedi dogma at the time, and felt it was my duty not only to ignore my family, but reject them. So I told my brother to leave me alone, to tell our parents to leave me alone, to let me serve my purpose as a Jedi for the Republic. (beat) So he left me alone. They all left me alone.
ZULL: You never heard from them again.
PRE VIZSLA: No, I heard from my brother again, one last time, several years later. (beat) He called to inform me that our parents were dead, both killed in the same farming accident.
ZULL: That is why you grew to hate the Jedi.
PRE VIZSLA: I hated myself, but I hadn't learned to despise the Jedi. That came later, after I met Kryze ...
ZULL: Your lover.
PRE VIZSLA: My wife. (beat) We met during the First Clone War, on some backwater planet the name of which I don't even remember. (beat) I was thirty-seven at the time, a lieutenant in the 373rd Jedi Regiment.
ZULL: Jedi regiment?
PRE VIZSLA: The Jedi were greater in number in those days. It wasn't uncommon to find battalions consisting solely of Jedi pitched in battle against the Mandalorian hordes. (beat) This was before the wars took their toll on them. (beat) Kryze was a non-sensitive, a soldier in an average Republican regiment which had been reinforcing our position against the Mandalorians. She wasn't classically beautiful, but she had a way about her -- an aura of strength and determination -- that I found instantly appealing, alluring. In spite of all I had been taught to believe, I wanted to hold her, to touch her ...
ZULL: To make love to her.
PRE VIZSLA: Yes. More than anything, I wanted to make love to her, to join her body with mine and share myself with her, because I knew -- I knew -- that I was missing something; a part of myself had been stolen away when the Jedi stole me away from my mother and father, a part that could only be replaced by this woman, this Force-blind woman my teachers had taught me to shun and disassociate myself from. (beat) It took time. Our love didn't blossom in a day. And when it did, we still took it slow, so very slow. But we loved each other -- we learned to love each other -- and it was beautiful.
ZULL: But something happened to her.
PRE VIZSLA: She died. This was after the First Clone War, in the years leading up to the war with the Separatists. It wasn't even in battle; she died of disease. Ironically, it was a strain of the very same virus which caused my sickness as a child that took her life. (beat) In the aftermath of her death, in all the legal hassle that followed, the Council finally learned of our marriage. Only months after her funeral, while I was still grieving, they berated me for falling in with her, stripped me of my rank, and excommunicated me from the Order.
ZULL: (bowing her head) I'm sorry.
PRE VIZSLA: For a very long time, I was lost. I became a mercenary and fought for both sides during the Second Clone War. I didn't have any loyalties, no cause -- I was dead inside, and only wanted to strike back at everything and everyone, to make them feel as dead as I felt. (beat) But then I was hired by some minor warlord and put to work alongside a band of Mandalorian mercenaries in his employ. (beat) We had absolutely nothing in common; fact of the matter was that I loathed Mandalorians. But as we worked together, I came to see them in a new light; in spite of how far they had fallen following their civil war, they still had honour and dignity and a yearning to see their civilization restored; they had everything I had lost after Kryze died and the Jedi abandoned me. I envied them, and in time, I grew to admire them. As I admired them, I began to learn from them.
ZULL: They taught you to embrace both sides of the Force?
PRE VIZSLA: They taught me how to teach myself what I already knew.
Having completed their short trek, Vizsla and Zull now stand within the ruins of an ancient temple. Beams of sunlight stream in through the various holes and windows of the place, cutting thick lines of yellow illumination through the gloomy darkness within.
PRE VIZSLA: The galaxy has grown rotten, poisoned from within by the Empire, the Jedi, and the Clonemasters. But here, on this planet, there is purity. From here, we will bear witness to the new dawn of the Mandalorian civilization. From here, we will go forth with our army of Mandalorian Knights and, like a spear of light, pierce the hearts of our enemies. We will bring peace and restore order to the galaxy.
Absentmindedly, Zull reaches down and puts her hand across her belly, placing it over the slightly swollen area her three-month old fetus lies developing within.