Author's Note: So, I recently looked at my traffic stats, and I was surprised to see a few views coming from outside the United States. Il semble que mon histoire se déplace vraiment!
Anyway, I didn't expect to post the third chapter so early, but it just, well, happened. Don't expect that to become a regularity though, I still plan on updating only about every week or so. Don't forget to review, favorite, recommend, and follow this story if you're really getting into it.
Chapter 4: A Refined Sense of Pessimism
Aayla gave another sigh as she watched the Younglings leave the room and walk haphazardly into the Jedi Temple hallways. She leaned on the closest wall, crossed her arms, and retreated into a state of thought. For now, they wouldn't know the horrors out there if they are still learning here on Coruscant, but there was always the possibility that the war might come to them, in more ways than one.
Quinlan meanwhile was meditating; he was sitting legs crossed and eyes closed in the middle of the room. It wasn't unusual for Jedi to find their balance in the Force whenever they saw fit be it in a temple or outside on another planet, and Quinlan, even if he thought the peace afforded by meditation was only a temporary state of the Universe that leads back to more violence, knew the benefits of meditation after a battle. In his mind, it was a natural cycle. Chaos and Peace, Order and Anarchy, Light and Dark, Jedi and Sith; to him, these paired terms shared the same relationships with each other, being locked in a perpetual cycle of domination over the other that spans all of time and space. But there was always something that could disrupt the balance of any of these pairs of things, and there just so happened to be one now. The disturbance was Blue, feminine, very curvy, and right in front of him.
Aayla was slowly reducing herself to her state of worry. Without the Younglings to teach and to keep her mind off the things that are elsewhere and out of her control, her mind was resorting to irrational questioning.
I wonder how Commander Bly is keeping himself busy in the Outer Rim without me. He better not and get himself killed without my "Jedi Radar" to guide his every step. No, I shouldn't say that; I'm the one that left him after all, but does he even miss me? Does he even-
"I'm sure your Commander Bly is doing just fine along with the rest of his brothers, Aayla. Those Clones have a mettle and a sense of determination that I haven't sensed in any other lifeform, not even other Jedi.", She turned to see her Kiffar Master sitting in the middle of the room, where just moments ago the two had participated in an intense duel. She realized that he had just read her mind without her speaking, another one of his "neat tricks". If she were any other Jedi she would protest this blatant disregard for mental privacy, but she knew better than to ask why Quinlan decided to sneak himself into her inner thoughts. In truth, was an inescapable fate being near him for extended periods of time. After being apprenticed for him, and being near him for several years on end, this normally offensive act was more of a normality to Aayla, albeit still unnerving.
"Nothing could be kept a secret to you forever." She admitted.
"That's not true, actually. For example, I still don't know why you always act so embarrassed in front of me." Quinlan said happily.
"Embarrassed, what do you mean?"
"That's how you always felt when I beat you in spars, first in front of Masters, which may have been natural, but now in front of your own Younglings. You think I didn't notice the pattern?" Quinlan asked, continuing his crusade of teasing. "Trust me Aayla, you haven't changed much in that regard."
"I feel no such thing, Quinlan," Aayla denied. She was beginning to remember why she was so very eager to leave his apprenticeship; the teasing eventually got to her, and she had a breaking point. She rebalanced herself off the side of the wall she was leaning on before walking over to where Quinlan was sitting and sat down mirroring him in body position, attempting to meditate at least at half the concentration of her Master. "You know, I thought you came by to 'help' me with training the Younglings, not attempt to discourage me."
Quinlan disregarded her increasing sense of annoyance with more of his charming wit. "I wouldn't call that discouragement, I call it enlightenment; I'm enlightening you to the fact that after all these years, I still have much to teach you."
He was not helping Aayla with her built up stress in the slightest, most evidenced by her next comment.
"And what is it that you, the oh-so-wise and powerful Master Quinlan Vos, still haven't bothered teaching me yet? Aayla asked while wildly flailing around her hands and Lekku when describing her master. The intensity of her being intensified with every word she spoke. She was wondering what sort of blatant nonsense her old master would pull on her now. "Even with all my years under your tutelage, what could else did you just happened to forget to teach me, to cheat death, to have a personality as ridiculous or nonsensical as yours?"
"No, I don't think so. Either of those things would take too much time entirely," Quinlan replied. "Well, apart from martial arts, including kicks to the face, I think I need to teach you how to properly relax. The stress of the war is getting to your head Aayla, your reality is beginning to evade you and leave you with half-truths and deceptions implanted in your mind."
Aayla snapped, she had about enough of this Kiffar in front of him. Quinlan was not showing the slightest case of verbal understanding with her, and by his choice of speaking in philosophical nonsense, he didn't care either. She stood up, her boots making an especially loud impact on the floor. She Looked down at the still sitting Jedi, who was giving her a warm smile, which made her rage even more intense. She then unleashed a rage of words in front of him.
"That's easy for you to say, Quinlan, since all I see you do these days is either prance about the temple and boast about your skill and wisdom to your fellow Jedi, or disappear into the shadows of Coruscant and do who-knows-what, and then come back the next day pretending nothing happened. You think I didn't notice the pattern?" She asked in a half-mocking tone.
Quinlan lost his smile and replaced it with an expression of confusion and surprise. He was very used to being chastised by members of the Council for his erratic behavior, Master Windu being the worst offender by far. But to experience this torture for his own apprentice? This was a new revelation that he wasn't sure he liked.
"But, you're not the one who has to witness their soldiers die horrible, excruciating deaths on the battlefields of this terrible, brutal war. I have to hold each and every one of their limp bodies in my arms, looking into all of their tearful, sorrowful eyes, and I watched them leave me one after the other. I have had to stomach having to repeat that process every new day, each one being possibly worse than the last, without anyone else to help me, especially not the likes of you. That is my reality, Quinlan, I don't know what kind of twisted reality you pretend to live in, but you seemed to have spared yourself the bother of such disturbing and undesirable things as I have been forced to adopt. Do you seriously think that you are so entitled and deserving of your lazy, carefree lifestyle that you would resort to waving off other peoples suffering, even mine? How can you call yourself a Jedi Master if you refuse to show even the slightest hint of compassion to people around you? You should be ashamed of yourself!" She finally yelled at Quinlan.
Quinlan was noticeably shocked to hear these accusations coming from his former apprentice. Of all the years of training her, fighting alongside her, and sharing such a close bond with her, this was the first time that she had so directly hostile to him.
Oh no, she's in far worse condition than I had thought. She even refused my Kiffar hospitality!
"Listen, Aayla, I didn't mean to hurt you with what I said or did, I was just trying to help you."
"Really, I would have guessed that you were the one who needed help, Master."
Quinlan realized that his angle of attack was not working, so he tried another approach: aggressive logic.
"Don't lie to yourself, Aayla. I know you to be very tolerant of my actions, no matter as either a Jedi Master or a Padawan, you never once mentioned it, never once objected to what I did. I thought that's why you've adored me for so long after you were Knighted and left my side. I think that it is in fact, YOU, who has changed for the worse. I can't any longer sense any sort of innocence within yourself, and instead, a disturbing sense of desperation and contempt has filled that void in your heart."
"I-I don't know what you are talking about, I can't believe you're lying to me again!" Aayla quickly retorted in fractured inflection. She wasn't yet aware of what Quinlan was getting at.
"It's very noticeable, I might add," He continued" In fact, I could sense it emanating from your presence right when I walked into the room. And it was the reason that I didn't leave you after I told you I was busy with an assignment. This constant state of war and loss that you have voluntarily accepted has unknowingly made you desperate to keep and preserve all of what you hold so dearly. Yourself, your dignity, your Clones, even your own legacy. Is that why you chose to leave it all behind and come back to Coruscant to train Younglings, to keep your mind away from your own subconscious darkness? Is that why you are so hostile and mistrusting of me, the person who you've known and respected for nearly your entire life? Are you so desperate to deny your problems that you would slander your own Master with lies?"
"Well I, well I guess, I never saw it that way, to be honest." Aayla was losing it at this point, she had lost all her proper restraints and was just short of breaking down in front of him. She turned around and covered her face with her right arm as if she told herself to be ashamed to talk like that to her own master. This was especially true when she considered that he had been entirely truthful and justified with his statements. "You're right about me, Quinlan. I really do have so much to learn from you. I'm a terrible Jedi Master."
If it were anyone else in the Order listening to her, they might have chastised her for her behavior, but Quinlan knew better than that. Instead, he silently stood up from his meditative trance and walked over toward her. He put a hand on her right shoulder and turned her around. He pulled aside her hand from her face, slightly reddened from shame and guilt, and looked into her Hazel eyes, which were already beginning to show a couple of tears.
"Hey, don't say that to yourself. I know how confused and lost you are now with your emotions, don't hide it from me, honestly, I feel the same way at times, the darkness sometimes takes a liking to knawing at my being," He began "I know how hard this conflict is on all of us, and sometimes it may make us anxious about the future that lays ahead, but as a very wise Jedi once told me, 'We must focus on the here and now, to trust in ourselves and our friends, knowing that we will make it through any obstacle, any hardship, if we have faith in each other, our training and tradition, and faith in the Force to guide us'."
Aayla was more or less humbled by Quinlan heart-to-heart, it was like he was speaking to her as if she were ten years younger and still his Padawan. In truth, it felt very comforting to her. Her face softened, and then she took his hand off her shoulder.
"Thank you. I've forgotten how good you are with your words."
Quinlan was happy to see that she was in a better mood, for now. It would certainly take more than a simple speech to break Aayla out of her mental slump, but he had already done all he could for her at the moment.
"Maybe I should get back to my mission, and leave you to think about what I said."
"That would probably be best," Aayla said meekly.
Quinlan gave a simple nod to her and walked towards the door. He walked out of the room in haste, he still had a job to do.
I knew it was going to be too good to be true. Bane thought as he examined his new dilemma. He had just walked into new Embo's "place". From the outside, it may have looked like a half-ruined flat squeezed in between two larger buildings, but trying to find words sufficient for the interior was impossible. In his mind, comparing Aurra's apartment to this dump was like trying to compare a Twi'lek dancer to a Toydarian one, but perhaps even that comparison was generous.
"Embo, when I agreed to help you, I meant that we were going to work together to find somewhere that was halfway decent and didn't have Aurra Sing as an occupant. No offense, but you know how I don't like leaving a job half-finished."
Embo ignored Bane's irrationally high standards for housing as he himself was surveying the inside. They had both entered what had seemed like the main living space. There was a half-broken couch that laid next to a metal table that with a strange smell in the air, from which he deduced that this place must have been once used as a narcotics house, where lowly scum would cook up the ingredients for Death Sticks and other narcotics and then package it and sell them for quick credits. There were also signs that there was some "entertainment" here, with a few pieces of lewd clothing strewn about the room and even a black whip nearby. Bane picked it up to realize it was well used, and it felt, very, very, wrong. There was a neon green goo that was covering the whip, giving it a sticky feeling, as well as an odd smell that stood out from the rest of the room. He quickly dropped it in disgust, not wanting to imagine what twisted fantasy it participated in.
"Hmmm, if anything, they seemed to have had a good time here, quite distasteful in my opinion though."
"It will do, as long as it doesn't have that witch inside," Embo said as he was looking elsewhere in the room.
"Yeah, I've been meaning to ask you about that. Now don't get me wrong, I don't like Aurra Sing that much personally, but you seem to hate her. She has some unpaid debts to you or something?" Bane asked. He had noticed that Embo has not once said anything that wasn't at least neutral about Aurra since they met up at Jay's Junction several hours ago.
"I don't trust her, she has a long history of "undercutting" her partners."
"Not surprising, don't we all aspire to take more than our fair share? Look, just keep it to yourself until after we get our pay for killing the Jedi. Then you can blast her into dust for all I care afterward."
Embo gave a small nod to Bane, he was glad he was at least in some agreement with distrusting Aurra Sing.
"Well, you can sit here in this dump all day if you like, but like I said I, need to get someone desperate enough to lure in a Jedi."
Embo gave him a wave-off, and Bad quickly exited the apartment and walked back out into the open.
Now then, where would anyone look for a good slut? He thought.
Bane tipped his hat down in front of him and started walking down one of the side walkways. At this time of perpetual night was about the time most people chose to sleep or stay inside, which meant that for Bane, finding anyone of interest would be easier than normal. He continued walking in one direction for a few minutes before spotting a side alleyway next to the path he was walking down. It alley was tightly wedged in between two apartment complexes, which was the perfect place to find someone. Bane stopped walking in his direction, opting to walk towards the alleyway. This time, he decided to lean on one of the complexes, his body perpendicular to the alley's entrance.
Bane then waited for about another twenty seconds before hearing faint footsteps approach from the alley. He then saw a single thin figure approach him in full view from his side.
"Hey there, dirty boy," The figure said in an expectedly seductive accent. "Are you looking for a "good time" with someone special?" Bane looked at her and gave a quick examination. It wasn't easy to tell in the darkness, but from the silhouettes of two Lekku coming out of her head, she was definitely a Twi'lek, which in of itself wasn't surprising in the slightest, as females of that species were sought after by virtually all respectable men. She took one more step towards Bane and bathed herself in an overhead streetlight, and she was revealed to have exotic Red skin which would certainly make other prostitutes very jealous. Bane wasn't an expert on Twi'lek biology, but he knew that Red skin was rare, and from that, he thoughtfully deduced that she must charge a high price for her "services". She also appeared to have very engaging Green eyes, the kind that said "I promise I will take good care of you", which from a certain point of view was correct.
"Not exactly," Bane replied with the slightest delay, he was admittedly somewhat tempted to take the offer, as it was a rather good deal in comparison to most other offers. However, he knew that he still had to prioritize the most important things to do at the moment, and he could always schedule for some other time with this particular woman after he was paid. "But, what I have in mind can still net you a good sum of money if you are willing to do what I want."
She gave a disappointed face to Bane. "Baby, I don't think you know how things work down here", she began, "You see, a beautiful woman like myself is only submissive in a certain number of ways if you know what I mean."
"That might be true, but you still value money on its own, don't you? If you have any brains in you then you will listen to my offer. By the way, what's your name?"
"It's Aashi, honey, Aashi Naki. Now, what do you want?" She dropped the seductive accent once she realized it was not necessary, and reverted to a standard Coruscanti dialect.
"Well Aashi, I have a problem that I think you can help me with", he began. "You see, within the next day or so, there's going to be a special individual that will be coming here, a Jedi by the name of Quinlan Vos."
"J-Jedi?" She gasped, "Sorry, but I don't deal in Jedi. The last time that I ran into one of them, he had the nerve to attract the police droids over and tried to arrest me!"
"Well, if it makes you feel any better, I'm killing this particular one. Anyway, I have a simple task for you to accomplish. Lure him over to the Cantina, and get him thoroughly wasted. I don't care what it takes, but if you can do that for me, I'll make sure you get paid much more than one of your offered 'good times'."
"And how will I know I have the right man under my finger?" Aashi asked inquisitively, she was still half-convinced, but it certainly wouldn't hurt at least to ask a question or two.
"This specific Jedi is looking for someone and something, if you have any skill in catching desperate men then I'm sure you won't have a problem with finding him. So, what do you say?"
Aashi didn't answer immediately, which gave slight hope to Bane who thought this whore would be just crazy enough to accept his proposal. She clicked her tongue and replied a few seconds later.
"Sorry honey, I won't do it. No offense, but you Bounty Hunters are not much better as friends than any Jedi. And who knows what they might do to me if they find out what I did to help you. I should leave." She finished as she tried to slowly walk away from Bane. Unfortunately, he grabbed her by the wrist and fiercely pulled her back.
"Sorry honey," he said in a half-mocking tone, "but I think you know far too much to just walk away from me. Now I'll ask you again, will you do it?"
Aashi had a terrified look on her face, this Duros in front of her looked to be very well skilled in keeping people quiet. But then her natural Twi'lek sense of determination suddenly sparked inside of her mind, and then she decided to take a risk. Completing surprising Bane, she bent forward and fiercely bit Bane's hand that had gripped her by her wrist. He screamed in pain for a moment before looking up to see that slut having managed to free herself, and then turning and running away back into the alley.
He quickly turned and sprinted into the alley himself and realized that she was on track outrun him with her current pace. He then sighed at this revelation as he aimed his left arm gadget and fired a grappling rope around Aashi's legs, immobilizing her and causing her to lose balance and fall to the ground. With another simple button press, he subdued her with a quick round of shock therapy through the metal cord, with his arm gadget emitted enough electricity into her system to make her give out a loud screech before knocking her out.
Cad Bane caught his breath while thinking about what he had just done.
Well, I guess it was really a long shot.
He looked down at his victim's body, which Bane noted to be typically exposed like other women in her field of work. She wasn't dead, but there was no way that she would be useful to him now. Unless...
"I can't believe it's come to this." Bane lambasted himself. "Well, it looks like I need to find a Messanger Booth."