Kreia's a WHAT?
Disclaimer: I do not own KOTOR.
Note: Seriously, there must be something wrong with me, but I am a major fan of Vrook, as may become evident in this chapter...I don't know why, perhaps because he gets away with being incredibly rude to the PC and yet his LS-ness is never in question, while the reverse never holds true.
Chapter One: The Sith aren't going to lure themselves to Telos.
"Hey guys," the Exile said, entering the Jedi Enclave, which seemed to have been rebuilt in the five minutes it took to walk there from Khoonda. "Hey, didn't I leave before you?" she asked Vrook.
Pointedly pretending not to hear her, Vrook said gravely, "I think you know why we called you here."
"But…you didn't call me here. I went out of my way to find you," the Exile pointed out. "And you refuse to believe I'm not evil, Master Zez-Kai-Ell refuses to believe I'm not out to kill him, and Master Kavar…Well, he really couldn't get over the fact that I was traveling with a Mandalorian, an assassin droid, an Exchange Crime Lord, a bounty hunter who wants to claim my bounty, and an Iridonian with some extreme anger issues."
"I was also concerned about your droid fetish," Kavar added helpfully. Really, a crew of about ten and four droids? That couldn't possibly be normal.
"Hey, where's Atris, anyway? I sent her a message telling her we were going to meet up here," the Exile said, looking around in vain.
Zez-Kai-Ell sighed. "We have told you, Exile. Atris went to Katarr."
"No, she didn't," the Exile said irritably. "She was the one who wanted me to find you lot in the first place. Come to think of it, I'm pretty sure I still have the message she sent me last week." She took out her comlink and cycled through her messages. Hanhaar sent her quite a few for her to pass on to Mira.
Finally finding it, she played it and instantly Atris's image appeared, the very picture of annoyance. "Look, I don't care how many credits you're cheating that poor Ithorian out of or WHAT you need it for, I need you to hurry up. The Sith aren't going to lure themselves to Telos."
As the image of the Jedi Historian faded away, the other Jedi stared at the spot where it had been in disbelief.
"Well," Kavar said finally. "That was certainly unexpected, but we can deal with that when we're done here."
"But what are we doing here? Surely we can catch up on the way to Telos?" the Exile suggested.
Zez-Kai-Ell coughed awkwardly. "Exile, I'm afraid you're not going with us to Telos."
The Exile blinked. "So, you're going to get your own ride?"
"Well, yes, but what I meant was-" Zez-Kai-Ell tried to clarify.
"Exile, you're a threat to everyone around you and the galaxy at large," Vrook said bluntly.
"Vrook," Kavar turned to him, annoyed. "I thought we were going to break it to her gently."
Vrook snorted. "Subtlety is lost on her; don't pretend you don't know that."
"Hey, wait, what's this about me being a threat?" the Exile asked indignantly.
"You destroyed Peragus. You nearly got the Ithorians killed. You destroyed Dantoinne's defenses."
"Hey! Peragus is still not my fault! If people want to stalk me while I'm unconscious and getting kidnapped, then I cannot be held accountable for their actions! And just because I got lost on the way back to the Ithorian compound doesn't mean it's my fault! Czerka hired the mercenaries and I still got there in time to save Chodo Habat," the Exile protested.
"Technically, if you had not gotten involved, they would not have been in danger. And besides, half of the Ithorians were dead before you got there!"
"It was the will of the Force," the Exile shrugged.
"YOU CAN'T JUST USE THAT TO JUSTIFY THINGS EVERY TIME YOU MESS UP!" Vrook thundered.
"Why not? You all do," she pointed out.
"What about when you nearly destroyed Khoonda?" challenged Vrook.
"That was an accident!" At the others skeptical expressions, the Exile hastened to explain. "Zherron asked me to fix the jammed door before the mercenaries got there and so, naturally, I assumed that he meant to actually fix it and so I got it to open. How was I supposed to know that by 'fix' he meant 'break'?"
Kavar looked stricken. "It sounds like that was rather obvious."
"It was," Vrook confirmed. "But, as I have said, subtlety is lost on her."
"I'm still here, you know," the Exile reminded them.
"We know," all three said in unison.
"Just checking. And Zherron complained that the mines weren't going to do any good because they were so sparse that the mercenaries could just walk around them, so I figured, why not recover those mines myself and sell them?" the Exile asked.
"He wanted you to put more mines down, not remove the ones that were already there!" Vrook cried.
"Then he really should have said so," the Exile countered. "And besides, I needed the money."
"What could you possibly have needed the money for?" Zez-Kai-Ell asked in shock. "When I saw you on Nar Shaddaa, you had credits to burn. Literally. I still have that figuring made me out of credits of the Jedi Temple on Coruscant. Very fine craftsmanship."
"Thanks!" the Exile beamed. "And I did have credits to burn. 'Did' being the operative word. Then I got Goto's yacht blown up and so he's making me pay to replace it, despite the fact it's his own damn fault for kidnapping me and antagonizing Vogga in the first place, and so consequentially I've become rather short on credits lately."
"What about the turrets you sabotaged, the medical droids and defense droids you destroyed, the wounded men you killed, the demoralizing speech you gave the troops, the message you failed to deliver, and the potential recruits you let bribe you?" Vrook demanded.
The Exile put her hand behind her head and laughed nervously as the other two Master stared at her in horror. "Well, you see, about that…I kept trying to fix the turrets, but it kept saying something about finding some mythical terminal I don't believe exists, so I many have accidentally stabbed them all with a Vibroblade. Repeatedly. And the men wouldn't have died if the medical droid hadn't blown up, which it chose to do after I failed to guess the password to access it's programming for the 47th time and somehow triggered its self-destruct sequence."
She paused. "Although I'm still at a loss as to why a medical droid was equipped with a self-destruct sequence. The other droids started attacking me when I activated them, because I scrolled down on their programming list and hit 'Attack friendly targets only.' Come to think of it, that is a horrible design flaw. Anyone with any skill with computers-"
"Or utter incompetence," Vrook muttered.
"Could exploit that. And it's hardly my fault if I was behind on my payment to G0-T0 and the settlers were willing to give me 300 credits to exempt them from serving. I guess maybe they thought that it was a draft or something."
"I don't understand why you're paying him at all," Kavar said.
The Exile stared at him in disbelief. "Hello? Crime Lord? Could get me killed? It's best not to piss him off." She tilted her head, thinking. "Still, though, perhaps it was for the best. Khoonda could really use those credits. Their defenses suck."
Vrook was so speechless by this blatant refusal to take responsibility for her actions that he could only glare at her, incensed.
"As for the speech, well, there was really nothing. I could do about that. My speechwriter assured me that it was truly inspiring," the Exile said defensively.
"Exile, that speech went on for twenty minutes on how best to brutally slaughter the mercenaries and gave exquisite detail on exactly what each of those methods did to a variety of species and how you doubted they'd be able to survive the battle as they were all annoying, pseudo-pacifistic whining meatbags!" Vrook exploded. "Who was your speechwriter, you're assassin droid?"
"Well, yes, actually," the Exile said, surprised. "He volunteered. But how did you know?" The only response Vrook made was a groan. "And as for the message to that mercenary guy, well, I kind of forgot," she admitted sheepishly. "But come on, you can hardly blame me for that, there was a lot going on, what, with Khoonda's defenses being in shambles and everything."
"Then…how in the name of the Force did you manage to beat back the mercenaries?" Kavar asked, unsure if he really wanted to know.
"I used the Force to electrocute everyone in sight," the Exile explained cheerfully.
"Isn't that a bit…Sith-like?" Kavar asked cautiously.
"That's what I keep saying and you kept telling me I was 'overreacting'," Vrook grumbled.
"Nope," the Exile contradicted, still chipper. "All Jedi can't do is wield a red lightsaber or use Force Crush."
"I…I think I am beginning to see your point, Vrook," Kavar confessed.
"What sort of havoc did she wreak on Onderon?" Vrook asked.
"Well…None, really, but then, all we did was point her in the direction of Vaklu's troops and let her go at it. She did fail to act like a Jedi when dealing with General Vaklu himself, though," Kavar said reprovingly.
"Well, first of all, if you keep insisting I'm not a Jedi then I don't see why I should bother trying to act like one," the Exile huffed.
"A Jedi would act like one anyway," Vrook told her sanctimoniously.
The Exile's hands twitched towards her lightsaber, but she didn't respond Instead, she continued with her explanation. "It just seemed to me that maybe Vaklu had a point, is all," she shrugged.
"Then why did you let the Queen kill him?" Kavar asked, clearly not following her admittedly skewed reasoning.
"I just told you. Because he had a point. Weren't you listening?" the Exile demanded, annoyed.
"Perhaps you could tell us what Vaklu had a point about," Zez-Kai-Ell spoke up before Vrook had a chance to attempt to strangle her.
"Oh, well, he told the Queen that if they arrested him, he'd be out within a week. Given that half of the city supported him, I figured he probably would and therefore, leaving him alive to stage another coup would probably not be the best plan."
"That…actually…makes sense," Kavar whispered, stunned.
The Exile glared witheringly at him. "That's not exactly a novel occurrence, you know."
Kavar wisely chose not to reply.
"What sort of irreparable damage did she cause on the Smuggler's Moon?" Vrook asked, turning to Zez-Kai-Ell.
Zez-Kai-Ell hesitated. "Well, it's really hard to say…" He paused, thinking back. "Lots of senseless, violent acts are committed there all the time, so it is difficult to fully ascertain what the Exile was responsible for. I am reasonably certain that she wiped out the Serrocoans and the Exchange from the Refugee Sector, though."
Vrook's eyes bulged. "The Serrocoans? They were refugees. They belonged there."
The Exile shook her head defiantly. "They were thugs who formed a gang and were playing 'Let's-see-how-little-space-the-ever-growing-number-of-refugees-can-take-up' with the Exchange. They enjoyed that game far too much to help me get rid of the Exchange in that sector, and so they attacked me and I was forced to defend myself."
The Masters exchanged a look, certain more had transpired than that, but equally certain that they did not really want to know.
"She was also rumored to have convinced a mildly ill man to kill himself, purchased a slave, get a Republic war hero a job with pirates, got a family off the planet with an Ithorian-supremacist, and ruined the reunion of a couple torn apart by war by getting one of them killed," Zez-Kai-Ell informed them.
"Well, that certainly sounds damning, but let me guess: You have a perfectly reasonable explanation for all of this," Vrook said sarcastically.
"Actually, yes," the Exile agreed. "The sick guy said he had the plague, and with so little space, that would spread like Sith teachings through a Jedi Academy. I thought I was doing them a favor!"
"He actually had a bad cold coupled with a sore throat," Zez-Kai-Ell corrected her.
"Exile!" Vrook cried. "How could you not tell the difference between a cold and the plague?"
"I'm not a healer! I wasn't trained in this! He said he had the plague, I figured he would know!"
"What about your slave-buying?" challenged Vrook.
"Her mother couldn't pay a debt, her daughter was taken, I got her back! What's wrong with that?"
"You bought her," Vrook repeated.
"You keep saying that! I know that, but what would you have had me do? Slaughter all the Exchange thugs in the sector?" the Exile asked rhetorically.
"Didn't Zez-Kai-Ell say you did that anyway?" Kavar spoke up.
"Oh yeah," the Exile said, scratching the back of her neck. "Well, that was different. They were mad I killed the Serroco gang and they couldn't squeeze the Refugees as hard."
"And the ruined reunion?" Vrook pressed.
"Hey, I told her I cleared a path to her husband. It's not my fault if she took off before I could tell her which path."
"She took the shortest path and the Exile had cleared the long way around," Zez-Kai-Ell elaborated.
"Why would you do that?" Vrook asked.
"I was new there! I didn't have a map! I was doing the best I could! And before you ask, it took me two hours to convince that Ithorian to actually take them and the spice ship was the only one that needed a captain! They're lucky I found them any passage off the planet at all," the Exile said stubbornly, crossing her arms defiantly.
"Exile, we realize that your intentions were…well, not honorable, exactly, but not setting out to cause widespread death and destruction. Still, you tend to cause it anyway. Everywhere you go. You've got to be stopped now before you go off to an important planet like Coruscant," Kavar told her gravely.
"Just what do you propose to do?" the Exile asked, hand on her lightsaber.
"Oh don't be so melodramatic," Vrook snapped. "We're just going to cut you off from the Force."
The Exile relaxed. "Oh. Why didn't you just say so? I didn't really want the Force back in the first place."
The Masters looked surprised at this and Vrook put her in stasis just to be safe.
No sooner had they started the ritual, however, than Kreia came in and used the Force to knock the three Masters back and the Exile to the ground.
"Kae? I thought you died in the Mandalorian Wars," Kavar greeted her.
"You were blinded by your own preconceptions," came Kreia's cryptic answer.
"But…we found your body. You had no pulse and weren't breathing and were certainly very corpse-like," Kavar protested.
"Yes, well, I do that sometimes. Anyway, that's not the reason I came here," Kreia quickly changed the subject.
"Why did you come here, Exile?" Zez-Kai-Ell asked quietly.
"We really can't call her 'Exile' if we're calling the Exile 'Exile'," Kavar pointed out. "Besides, since she died, we restored her name."
The Exile, still in stasis, immediately began planning her own death and subsequent return so she could finally reveal to everyone that her name was, in fact-
"Alright. Why did you come here, Kae?" Zez-Kai-Ell asked again.
"Your arrogance is astounding!" Kreia snapped.
"…Where is this coming from?" Kavar asked. "We haven't really done anything astoundingly arrogant since that time we pretended to redeem Revan."
Kreia ignored them. "She has brought you truth and you condemn it? How dare you?"
"Look, I'm not sure what the Exile was supposed to tell us, but she didn't. Perhaps if you would like to do it instead?" Kavar prompted.
Kreia blinked. "You mean she hasn't told you that you can live without the Force and by doing that you can be truly free to make your own choices?"
"No, I think it's safe to say that she didn't," Zez-Kai-Ell answered her.
"Oh, well then…She surely would have had you given her the opportunity to defend herself against your wild accusations!" Kreia quickly rallied.
"But we did give her a chance to defend herself. She didn't mention anything like that. And she actually seemed kind of eager to get cut off from the Force," Zez-Kai-Ell contradicted.
"Lies!" Kreia insisted. "You, Kavar, walked the surface of Onderon, chasing the echoes, and yet you never stopped to listen. Zez-Kai-Ell, you hid yourself from the Force and refused to see it on Nar Shaddaa. Vrook, I've lost too many pupils to you, but you shall not have this one!"
"If I've told you once, I've told you a thousand times, Kae. If you do not teach your pupils the basic distinctions between light and dark, they will not be able to appreciate the subtleties of your…views…" Vrook told her.
"I was a little busy dealing with a violent civil war," Kavar pointed out.
Everyone looked at Zez-Kai-Ell. "I…actually don't have an excuse," Zez-Kai-Ell admitted.
"Enough!" Kreia burst out suddenly. "I will not hear your lies! The Exile is the key to destroying the Force!"
"Well…No arguments here," Vrook agreed, surprising everyone. "By the way, is there any point in asking why you want the Force destroyed?"
"Because I hate it," came the prompt answer.
"How do you hate the Force?" Kavar asked, bewildered.
"It is cruel and manipulates you into doing its bidding. I highly resent that, and thus the Force must," Kreia replied primly.
Vrook sighed heavily, feeling as though he was speaking to a petulant child. "There is no concrete evidence that the Force manipulates anything or, in fact, even has a will of its own. We just say that to help people understand why bad things happen. It's no different than believing in fate and, as the Force is not a physical entity, it is simply not very feasible to destroy it. Even if you manage to kill all current Force-users, random mutations will ensure that there will always be Force-sensitives and, just like at the beginning of our Order, some will learn to manipulate the Force and the cycle will begin again. Besides, without the Force, you can't very well expect such a small group of people to be able to take down the armies of a corrupt leader and with no one to stop them, the galaxy will fall into such a time of tyranny, the likes of which haven't been seen for generations!"
Kreia considered this briefly. "That's an excellent point." She drained the Force from the three Masters and watched them fall to the ground, dead. "A very good point. But then, I've always hated logic. 'Not feasible,' he says. I'll show him…" Kreia muttered, walking over to a handmaiden sister. "Take me to Atris."
Surprisingly, despite just having witnessed firsthand Kreia's mad Jedi-killing skills, she did so.
To Be Continued…
Note: By the way, I realize that Kreia is probably a bit out of character, but in the game she's always so cryptic and serious that I honestly wasn't sure how she would react to something like this.
Review, please!