Editing Ki'ardi (section)

==Sha'zu Késa and the ''sith grei''==

The Ki’ardi hoped never to need lightsaber and blasters and instead sought solitude from the universe but, in time, as was inevitable, the Sith menace returned and, this time, few Jedi could be spared to aid the Ki’ardi. They needed to take up arms against the Sith themselves. At first, armed with blasters, daggers and swords, and facing the mighty alchemically reinforced blades of the Ancient Sith, the Ki’ardi seemed to be fighting a hopeless battle. Even the Jedi that had been sent to help them, now dependent on their lightsabers (weapons liable to fail on Babylos even in the hands of a Jedi Master) were of little aid in turning back the tide.

The solution, though, arrived from a most unusual source. Within the folds of the Ki’ardi order, the mysterious ''sith grei'' were as respected as they were feared. Known for the gray cloaks that they wore at all times this secretive order of the Ki’ardi were dedicated to the cleansing of Artemis crystals that had succumbed to the Dark Side. They would absorb the crystals darkness into their own minds and souls and combat it there, turning the crystal back to the purity of the Light.

As the battles with the ancient sith filled the skies above Babylos and blooded the crystal ranges, the ''sith grei ''could only watch as more and more crystals succumbed to proximity to the Sith and turned to evil. They feared that they would not have the will and the spirit to cleanse their world. Even if the Sith were defeated their mere presence was destroying the world the Ki’ardi protected.

But the ''sith grei'' were devious and in the Sith they saw a power that while evil was perhaps not inherently so. The Sith wielded their dark blades with a mastery that was more than the sword’s indestructible and evil nature; perhaps that could be turned to the Ki’ardi’s advantage and so it was that the ''sith grei ''approached the Three Sisters with their plan. Had any other Ki’ardi suggested it, the Three Sisters would surely have turned it down without even the slightest doubt but the'' sith grei'' were known for their strange and sometimes dangerous insight.

The Plan was as simple as it was dangerous; for if it failed the Ki’ardi would surely become the thing they fought, servants of the Dark Side. The Ki’ardi were to capture a Sith and force him to teach them the secrets of their martial art (what they called Sâiraté). The Ki’ardi would then take this dreaded art and purify it within themselves (just as the sith grei cleansed the crystal essences they took into their souls) and in so doing create a new, bolder, and purer discipline.

It was no easy task but as the Ki’ardi warriors that had refined this new martial art charged onto the field of battle with their nemeses, their new discipline was baptized in the blood of fallen Sith and given its name on the lips of dying Sith, sha zuu kesssa, an ancient sith curse and a disdainful name in one, meaning corrupted form, or ‘baser art’. The term appealed to those original masters and even as their art matured and evolved, transforming into something fundamentally different from Sâiraté, the name sha’zu késa remained; for anything the Sith disdain must surely be good.