Retiring to her bedchamber, Allana wasn't surprised to see Plagueis sitting on her couch with that arrogant smirk on his face.
The Queen Mother snorted as she crossed her arms. "How long can you maintain that astral form across different realities?"
"As long as I need to," Plagueis answered. "When you're immortal, virtually nothing can exhaust you or your abilities. But anyway, I was monitoring your first session as Queen Mother with those military leaders. I must say, I am genuinely impressed, especially for a girl your age."
His tone then degraded to something a bit more feral. "Except that you forgot to do what I told you to do, Your Highness." He spoke her title like a curse just as the form of the previous Queen Mother appeared between them.
Abruptly, he placed a hand on the spirit of Tenel Ka's forehead and emitted another painful Force wave that startled her to scream in agony again. In response, Allana vainly sent out a Force wave against Plagueis's astral form that didn't even waver it from torturing her mother's ghost.
Five seconds after Allana sent out that wave, Plagueis stopped torturing Tenel Ka and looked back up to her daughter.
"Well?" he asked. "Are you going to remedy your mistake, Your Majesty, or do I have to continue torturing your beloved predecessor?"
Allana sighed before taking out her commlink and activating it. "Coordinator Eru?"
"Yes, Your Majesty?" came the female voice on the other end.
"I need you to assign two dozen collector agents each to the following worlds..."
.
Geuy Gagner and Vierra Falan, both in ragged, dirty clothing, were the first two former Jedi apprentices to enter Peb's apartment to find him and Jaden standing by in the center f the living room, waiting for their arrival.
"Welcome to my humble abode, Mr. Gagner, Madame Falan," Peb said as he swept his arm to wave around the luxurious area around them. "Please help yourselves to whatever nourishment you find necessary for yourselves."
"Don't mind if we do," Geuy said as he raced for the kitchen.
"I've literally been dying for a good meal today," Vierra said.
"You think they'll sack your kitchen empty?" Jaden asked Peb.
"They can try," Peb answered with a wan smile.
Several more minutes went by, and one by one, each of the nine other former apprentices across Chandrila entered Peb's apartment. Their Chagrian host directed them towards the sofas, where they had room to disperse, and once all were seated, including Peb and Jaden themselves, the former told the others, "Now we just have to wait for our last two guests, ladies and gentlemen."
"How much longer do you think Geuy and Vierra will be, Peb?" Jaden asked.
"Well, it's not the first time I took homeless people off the street, Master Korr, so I'll give them about five more minutes or so," Peb replied.
"You allowed vagrants into your home before this, Peb?" asked the Zabrak male, Macra, who had only been an apprentice in the Order for a good six months before the Gerila Shesh-led Galactic Alliance's move against Shedu Maad.
Peb shrugged. "Yeah, sure. When I'm in a generous mood. It's usually because they're within my general area, Macra, typically just outside my penthouse. I got the resources to spare to feed and clean 'em, so what the hell. I help 'em out."
"Then you just send them back on the street and on their directionless way?" asked the Chevin female Piollak Jendel, who had been part of the Order for eight months before it was rounded up from Shedu Maad.
"Well, I set most of 'em up with jobs, Piollak," Peb said. "Nothing cushy or high-paid though. Just enough to get them by living in modest apartments in the city, at least."
"Seems as if being in the Jedi Order has changed you for the better, my friend," the soft-spoken Twi'lek male Hemad Gade said. He'd been part of the Order for almost a year before he was kicked out by Grand Master Hamner; again, because of the Alliance move on Shedu Maad ordered by Chief of State Shesh. "I doubt that you would be so generous if not for your time being trained by Master Durron."
Peb's face fell into a frown at the mention of Kyp Durron. The Chagrian had trained under the once-Sith-possessed Jedi Master prior to the Battle of Reonoq which sparked the Second Swarm War, and which ended the lives of several Jedi Masters, which included Kyp.
"Yeah," Peb said, his tone sullen now. "He knew just how to kick my ass. Not only in the literal sense, mind you, but also in the figurative sense. He knocked the rich snobbiness I was so well known for when I first entered the Order."
[I still remember how much of a massive prick you were], roared the female Wookiee Yellacaba. She had been part of the Order for almost two years, and was known to be a very slow learner as an apprentice. Trained by Octa Ramis, she would often get on the Jedi Master's nerves in her general incompetence with a lightsaber, never mind her constant failure of heeding to basic meditations. If it weren't for her will to strive to be a Jedi Knight, she would have dropped out out of the Order on her own.
"Yeah," agreed Qana Hasa, the male Caamasi who had only been in the Order for two months before being exiled by Grand Master Hamner. "You were quite intolerable in your self-righteous sense of higher placement among the older apprentices, like us."
"Well, again, thanks to Master Durron, whatever was left of that assholery my parents instilled in me by spoiling me so much, I think it's safe to say it's gone," Peb said.
"I sure hope so," replied the female Anx Areena Ajag. She was part of the Order for only four months. "I never did appreciate you calling me hornhead so many times. You were lucky I didn't report you for xenophobia, Liko."
"Yeah, sorry about that, Areena," Peb told her with genuine apology in his tone. "I was definitely an idiot before Master Durron took me on."
"Indeed, you were, Liko," male Bothan Krei'lap said. Part of the Order for five months. "You still owe me an apology for calling me Snout-Face."
"Sorry, Krei," Peb told him. His tone was still sincere.
"Well, you weren't all that bad to me, Peb, so don't be so hard on yourself," purred the sultry voice of female Zeltron Ceraz Polin. Having been in the Order for a good seven months, she was one of the few apprentices to take a liking to her Chagrian host back when they were all apprentices; the two of them often flirted with one another, but nothing really serious ever happened.
Peb only smiled in response to the sexy Zeltron. "The old me would have made a rather perverse comment on that one, Ceraz."
"Would it have been, 'I can be hard on you, baby?'" asked male Iktotchi Jeg Juh, apprentice of only three months in the Order in the events leading up to the Alliance taking the majority of the Jedi back to Coruscant.
"Telepathy, Jeg?" Peb asked with a wry smile.
"No, I just knew the old you so well," Jeg replied.
Ceraz couldn't help but look away from Peb at what Jeg had said.
By then, Geuy and Vierra had stepped out of the kitchen area and slowly walked over to the couch, clutching their bellies.
"So... much... food," Geuy said.
"If I throw up, I'll never forgive myself," Vierra followed.
"Even if you do, the clean-up will be no problem," Peb said. "Now, take a load off, you two. I don't mind any of my couches getting dirty from your attire."
Once Geuy and Vierra sat down, Jaden stood up and said, "All right, everyone, listen up. I'm reforming the Jedi Order, and this is how we'll do it..."