"Bzz~ bzz~~ bzz~ bzz~~"
Inside the armory, Max held the lightsaber and practiced thrusts, horizontal sweeps, vertical chops, and diagonal cuts. Blue light blazed. The containment field gave off a pleasing hum, and in that duet of sound and glow, Max practically saw it: punching Darth Vader, kicking Palpatine, crushing the Death Star with the Force, splitting open the void with a lightsaber—and smashing the desks of a few Core World HoloNet editors into scrap. He was almost euphoric.
"Fwoosh~"
He shut the blade off, took two deep breaths, and calmed himself before addressing the armory crew.
"Rok. Can we turn out more lightsabers? As a breaching tool, this is about as good as it gets. If we can scale it, every trooper in the assault cadre gets one."
It was strange—mid-sentence, Max faintly felt the lightsaber in his hand grow heavier.
"Commander, don't call me 'master.' I'm just a Mandalorian smith." Emily Rok waved her hands and brought up a holographic projection. "At my level, I don't even understand the principles behind this thing. If it broke, I might not know how to fix it—let alone copy it cleanly."
That didn't make sense. In Max's memory, a lightsaber's layout wasn't complicated. And he knew Emily Rok well; with her skill, she shouldn't be stumped by the basic structure.
Could it be that real lightsabers were far more complex than the diagrams in stories? Thinking, Max paced around the projection—he didn't adjust the holo, just circled the fixed 3D model.
No, that wasn't it. After one full loop, he realized the structure matched what he remembered almost exactly.
"Th-this layout… isn't it pretty simple?" Max asked, genuinely puzzled.
"The layout is simple. The physics absolutely aren't."
Emily shook her head, frustrated, and pointed at the model. "Look. This is the power unit. This section generates a containment field to confine high-energy plasma into a blade. But I can't identify the source. I can't reproduce how the plasma is produced in the first place."
So that was it. Max finally understood. He knew what happened, but not why.
And for a true replication, the "why" mattered. But for building a working hilt around a known heart, sometimes "what" was enough.
"Rok—here." Max pointed to a section of the hologram. "See the crystal? That's not ordinary crystal. It's kyber. Feed it energy, and it does what no sane power system should be able to do."
"Ah… what?" Emily stared at him, then at the model again, like she was checking whether she'd misheard.
"Don't chase the inside of it." Max tilted his head and made a small, dismissive motion with two fingers. "Treat it like a sealed component. You don't need to know how it works inside—only what it expects from the power unit, and what it outputs. The mechanism is tied to the Force. I can't give you a clean explanation. I don't have one."
Emily's expression tightened, then settled into the practical calm of a smith being handed an ugly constraint. "Understood."
"If I can supply kyber crystals, can you build hilts here?"
"No problem." Emily patted her chest. "I can tool up for housings and internal mounts. If you can guarantee a steady supply of kyber, we can assemble a lot of units fast—call it one hundred a day, easy."
She paused, then added, like she couldn't help herself: "But these won't be elegant Temple-made sabers. They'll be functional. Consistent. Good enough for cutting doors and scaring fools. If you want duel-grade tuning, that's another problem entirely."
Something was off. This time Max clearly felt the lightsaber in his hand grow heavier again.
Emily continued, "Should we copy the exact style of your lightsaber?"
"No." Max's answer came too fast. Then he forced his voice to stay level. "We change the design. This one is unreasonable for mass issue."
The hilt grew heavier—so heavy it nearly slipped from his grip.
It's resisting me. This lightsaber is resisting me.
Max realized it in an instant. Without showing it on his face, he set the crossguard lightsaber onto the workbench, then said, as if it were just another engineering decision:
"Our copies keep only the main blade. No side vents—no secondary blades. Those open side blades can injure the user if you're careless. The drawbacks outweigh the benefits."
He switched the hologram's mode and began sketching a single-crystal, single-blade design from memory in midair.
"Rok. We build this."
"That's much more reasonable." Emily nodded as she looked. "Should we modify your lightsaber to match this too?"
"Ah—haha…" Max laughed awkwardly, then exhaled. "Not yet. I need to… see if the crystal will accept it."
"Accept it?"
"Yes. More precisely, the kyber inside it. Kyber isn't inert the way durasteel is. It has resonance. It has preference. Call it will, if you like."
Emily blinked, processing it the way a Mandalorian processes any oddity: note it, respect it, work around it. "Understood. I'll wait for your word."
Max picked up the crossguard lightsaber from the bench. "Rok, I'm heading back. Take everyone to the cafeteria. I ordered food for the armory—brought some specialty ingredients from Coronet City for the chef. It should taste good."
…
The moment he returned to his quarters and relaxed, the lightsaber slipped from his hands—clang—dropping to the floor.
"I'm sorry. I'm sorry."
He bent down in a panic. The instant his fingers touched the hilt, he faintly felt he couldn't lift it. He didn't force it. He simply stayed crouched, hands hovering.
What now? Apologize with a bow? With… a full prostration?
Thunk. Thunk. Thunk.
Max touched his forehead to the deck plates three times.
A man could die before he'd abase himself to Palpatine. But bowing to a grand predecessor from four thousand years ago—one he'd just offended with his mouth—Max felt zero psychological resistance.
"It's all for defending peace and justice in the galaxy. Duels against Sith sabers and cutting blast doors—same struggle, different division of labor. Please bear with me!"
"Smack!"
Max slapped himself. What was he even saying?
No. Not like that. Focus. Center yourself. Communicate through the Force—if there was any communication to be had.
Before the lightsaber, Max sat cross-legged, settled his hands into a simple centering mudra, and silently recited the creed of the balanced Force tradition, the Je'daii:
"No ignorance—only knowledge.
No fear—only power.
I am the heart of the Force.
I am the revealing fire of light.
I am the mystery of darkness.
In balance with chaos and harmony,
Immortal in the Force."
Still useless. Because he kept thinking about "connecting," he couldn't stay focused—and he couldn't enter meditation.
So what should he do? How could he establish contact with a kyber crystal? And if he did… what did he even want to say?
Unable to slip into meditation, Max stopped forcing it and thought instead: what did he truly want to communicate?
Old crystal… I need power. That sounds Sith-like, but I do need power. Without power, I can't protect myself, and I can't protect others.
I used to be just an ordinary college guy back home. After arriving in this world, I fought before I even understood what was going on—back then, all I wanted was to survive.
Later, I fought and bled with my squad. Bonds formed. They looked after me, a "kid" in their eyes. And I wanted to protect them.
Then the squad leader died, and I became squad leader. The company leader died, and I became company leader… and later still, I became the top leader of the faction. Thousands of people entrusted their futures to me. I have to protect them.
I know what's coming. I know Pre Vizsla will unify Concordia, so I led our faction away and took Cloud City. From then on, the future of the six hundred thousand people here is tied to mine. Shouldn't I protect them too?
The deeper his memories went, the more focused his thoughts became—and without realizing it, Max entered meditation.
Memories from before he arrived here—Ryn Teyson's memories, and the original Max Vizsla's memories—intertwined.
Then came the memories after he arrived. At first, he only wanted to protect himself. But the tide of the era pushed him higher and higher, and he had to shoulder greater responsibility.
And after that—scenes from the Star Wars films he'd watched: the Clone Wars, the Second Mandalorian Civil War, Order 66… The farther he went, the blurrier it became.
No. That's not the plot I remember. My memory's sharp now—I shouldn't be misremembering. This isn't memory.
This is the Force—showing the future.
Max focused. In the nearly vanished image, he saw the rise of Mandalore, and before the darkness smothering the galaxy, a single yellow guardian light igniting.
Bright yellow light flooded his entire room.
Max opened his eyes.
The light vanished—but he knew it hadn't been an illusion. He rummaged in his chest and pulled out the crystal pendant he'd bought earlier on "Elysium Street" in Coronet City. The once-transparent crystal had become a pure, luminous yellow. Holding it, he could feel it in perfect accord with his intent, his will aligned with it—during meditation, this kyber crystal had resonated with him.
He put the yellow crystal away, then lifted the crossguard lightsaber from the floor. He pressed the activation, ignited it, and practiced thrust, sweep, chop, and diagonal cut again.
The lightsaber was no longer heavy.
Max could feel it: the ancient crossguard saber no longer resisted him. It accepted him. He could also feel something else—that this saber did not want to be modified into a single-blade design. Its will, it seemed, wanted to prove itself.
So that's how it is.
Then, for protection—let's fight side by side.
PS: A lightsaber's blade color is determined by the kyber crystal within. Kyber crystals have a kind of living resonance; some traditions say that in an unbonded state they can appear clear, and after resonating with a light-side Force user they can manifest a distinct color aligned with that bond.
In the new canon, Jedi Temple Guards are known for bright yellow blades, often in double-bladed pikes.