Jedi Kasumi
By Jim Robert Bader
(Featuring characters and situations created by George Lucas and Rumiko Takahashi. This is purely a work of fiction and is not intended to compromise the copyrights of any other creative persons. I have nothing worth suing me for, so please be gentle...)
[Special thanks to Rann Aridorn for ideas and inspiration that helped in the creation of this chapter...]
Episode Thirty-Five.
Rules of Attraction and Repulsion
THE STORY SO FAR:
As the match between the Golden Pair and the Force Masters Shampoo and Ukyo begins in earnest another drama is taking place elsewhere within the Kolhotz Sporting Arena...
Akane and her reluctant iinazuke,
Kodachi, have just rescued a drugged Ryoga from the cage he was trapped within by the kleptomaniac skater,
Shiratori Azusa, and are attempting to sober him up in time to get back to witness the match that is taking part on the skating arena...
Meanwhile Darth Purge and his minion, Pantyhose Taro, are elsewhere within the Building intending to get their revenge against the Jedi Knight,
Trieste, and her disciples, the Tendo Sisters Kasumi and Nabiki, as well as their mutual iinazuke, Saotome Ranma...
And while all of this is taking place yet another player in our little drama is about to re-enter the scene, one who will play a crucial role in deciding the balance in the war between the Sith and the Jedi...
"Now where am I, and how do I find my way to the sporting arena?"
Hikaru Gosunkuji looked around at the strange high school campus, totally out of his element and certain that just being there was asking to get his ass kicked by the local toughs, who would doubtlessly recognize him as a Furinkan High School student. That was usually the pattern that befell him wherever he went, the local pecking order would assert itself and guys like Gosunkuji were literally on the bottom of the food chain. Would not even matter to them that he had only been a student of a rival campus for a very short period of time, just the symbolic representation of being attached to an enemy establishment was cause enough to justify severe reprisals.
The last thing he needed was to be waylaid on his way to watch the match between Ukyo, Shampoo and the Golden Pair. He was only recently recruited into the ranks of promising candidates for training with the Jedi but already he had learned so much about calming the strange abilities that had been with him all of his life, and that was almost like being accepted into a family or group, an experience unique to his existence. Even his own family had never treated him like he belonged to them, and it was not just because of his precognition...his very condition itself was a barrier to full acceptance.
Being slightly built and pallid with hollow cheeks and a face that might look well on a cadaver he was no one's ideal of a perfect son or boyfriend. Women tended to ignore him, men acted like he was not there half of the time...and when they did notice him it was with scorn and derision, invariably leading to violence and rejection. The advantage of this was that he could pass as almost invisible among strangers, but when he was the focus of attention what he represented to the average observer was a mistake and a freak of nature. He made people feel disgusted, and they seemed to think his looks were somehow contagious, that merely touching him (other than with a fist, of course) might transmit his condition. Even the Yakuza had regarded him as a walking joke better fit to be buried, and if his former employer had not seen a use for him and thus offered his protection...well, Hikaru did not need to imagine what those thugs might have done with him for their own dark amusement.
And yet the Tendos had treated him with kindness...and Kasumi had protected him while her teacher had praised Gosunkuji and seemed to believe that he had serious potential. That was why he had to risk himself like this, to offer his support to the Jedi in respect for offering him to teach him, and for allowing him to believe that he might somehow find a place in the light of the world after all. It meant more to him than he could convey in words, and though there was little he could do to repay their kindness he needed to demonstrate to them that he was worthy of their confidence, that he would study hard and learn all that they had to teach him, and maybe one day live up to the potential that Sensei Trieste had said that she had seen within him.
But first he had to find the arena so he could show up as he had promised, and to do that he had to make an intelligent guess on which direction to take or he might be very late and would miss the challenge match between the Force Masters and Golden Pair. If only his precognition could assist him in deciding his way, or if his training was far enough along that he could stretch out with his feelings and...
"There you are...Gosunkuji-san, right?"
"Eh?" Gosunkuji was so startled that he almost jumped out of his skin. Much to his surprise the one addressing him was a very pretty girl who seemed to be about his age, and yet she was looking at him as though she had been seeking to find him, and she seemed somehow familiar with her curly brown hair, dark eyes and...
"Where have you been?" the girl asked in mild exasperation, then she doubly startled Gosunkuji by reaching out to grip him by the wrist, "Come on, we have to hurry or we'll miss the fight, and Sempai will be very cross with us for not being there to wish her friends on to victory."
"Huh?" Gosunkuji reacted with surprise as the girl started dragging him forward, "Your...sempai?"
"You know," she sounded more amused this time and flashed him a smile before elaborating, "Tendo Nabiki, the sister to Kasumi, the girl who helped to save your life? She's my friend and...well, I'm kind of like her right-hand assistant. We met the other day, remember? My name is Ryonami, and it's very nice to see you."
"It is?" Gosunkuji was having trouble sorting out these strange events, that a beautiful girl had taken the time to come look for him, and at the instruction of Tendo Nabiki, who clearly WANTED him to be present at the match involving a pair of fellow Jedi?
"Of course it is, silly," the brown haired girl brightly chided, "Sensei Trieste was asking what had become of you, and even Ranma-kun volunteered to see if you had made it to the Kolhotz campus."
"Ranma," Gosunkuji paused to wonder about that, unused as he was to viewing another man as anything but a threat waiting to strike him down, and it was usually the jock types who were the bane of his existence. Yet here was a guy who had it all...strength, looks and a way with the ladies...and he was actually offering to leave their side to come looking for Hikaru Gosunkuji?
It was difficult to credit, and almost reflexively Gosunkuji tried to think of what ulterior motive Ranma might have for his seeming generosity. The act shamed Hikaru the moment he realized what he was doing, the more so as he could not think of a single thing that Ranma had to gain by making his offer. It was even possible to imagine that Ranma had made the offer in his usual off-handed way, as if he need not bother to have to give it a second thought, as though it were perfectly natural to go out of his way for a guy he had only recently met.
In a lot of ways Gosunkuji both liked and hated Ranma, resenting him for the very qualities that Gosunkuji envied, his strength and virility, the way that such beautiful girls as Nabiki and Kasumi came onto him and were willing to share in a night of glorious passion. As strange and perverse as that sounded, with them it actually seemed both natural and wonderful without needing to make sense in any conventional manner...
All at once Gosunkuji staggered, and then the images flooded into his mind, of a looming shape that hovered over his new friends and Sensei, and then...terrible images...a flash of something both bright and dark that struck a fatal blow, and then an explosion of pain and grief that was overwhelming, followed by nothingness and a dark, terrible horizon that stretched out in all directions, swallowing all hope forever and ever...
"Are you all right?" he heard Ryonami ask in what sounded like genuine concern for his welfare, "Gosunkuji-kun...?"
"Guh...ah...I...yeah...I think so," Gosunkuji said, fighting hard as though the breath had been knocked out of his lungs, only the next moment he straightened up and cried, "No! It can't happen like that! I won't let it! Not to Sensei..."
"What?" Ryonami asked, only to blink in redoubled surprise as the slight boy gripped her fiercely and all but shook her in his anxious desperation.
"Take me to Sensei...now!" he hissed, trying to convey a sense of overwhelming urgency, "I have to get there in time to warn her...warn her about the shadow!"
Ryonami was confused at the alarming sense of terrible need in the boy's tone and expression, but she was accustomed enough to the unusual from hanging around with Nabiki that she knew better than to waste time with pointless questions. Besides, the boy was clearly upset about something, and the only one who would know what to do about this was her beloved Sempai, so she took Gosunkuji by the hand and drew him along with greater haste than before, feeling a cold chill run down her spine that whispered terrible things were in the offing, and that somehow they had to act quickly to prevent a tragedy from happening the likes of which her young mind stoutly refused to imagine...
"Guh..." Ryoga spurted as hot water gushed over his diminishing frame, "Ah-
what? Who...?"
"Easy there, Hibiki-san," Akane urged as the boy that she and Kodachi were dunking under the showerhead flailed aimlessly against their best efforts to hold him steady, "You're all right now...we got you out of there, so just take it easy."
"Ah...my tongue...feels like soap..." he worked his mouth, trying to get some water in so he could wash out the taste.
"That would be the effect of the drugs working through your system," another feminine voice pointedly noted, "Give yourself a few moments and you ought to be feeling somewhat better."
Ryoga felt strangely calm when he realized that the two dark-haired shapes before his still-clouded vision were both women, yet still his mind was too fogged for instant recognition. With less of the energy of fear in his voice this time he said, "Who...who are you again?"
"Tendo Akane and Kuno Kodachi," one of the two shapes said somewhat defensively, "You do remember us...don't you?"
"Uh...kinda," Ryoga's vision began to clear as they pulled him out from under the showerhead, but still he had difficulty placing the names and faces to anything definite in his memories, so he said after a minute, "Um...were we enemies? I don't have many friends...I mean...practically none to speak of, but..."
"What about Kuonji Ukyo?" the dark haired girl with the ponytail asked, and immediately her query obtained a forcible reaction.
"Ukyo?" Ryoga gasped, "Where is she? Is she safe?"
"Safe?" the one named Akane asked, "Um...well, that all depends. She's going up against Senzenen Mikado...and, well, safe is a relative term..."
"I'm not talking about him," Ryoga said brusquely, "Taro! He's after her, I just know it! He and Ucchan never saw eye-to-eye over anything, and I know that he'd like nothing less than to get back at her sometime during the match..."
"That would make a kind of sense, really," Akane turned to her companion, "Maybe he isn't just after you, Kodachi-chan. After all, he did say he was here on other business."
"Eh...yes, I suppose that this is so," Kodachi noted, still trying to absorb what she had just witnessed of the Hibiki boy's transformation from snout-faced pig-man to a rather attractive (if wild-maned) young man.
Ryoga sought to regain his footing, leaning heavily against the wall (and feeling grateful that he at least had his clothes on in the presence of the two ladies), "Taro's dangerous...he's nobody you can underestimate...but...I seem to remember somebody else...saying he wanted to hurt Ucchan."
"That would either be Senzenen Mikado or his somewhat demented partner, Shiratori Azusa," Kodachi duly noted, "They are in competition together even as we speak."
"Yeah, and I'm missing it...and I'm supposed to be at least one of their coaches," Akane winced, "Look, Hibiki-san...can you walk? Because we need to make time if we're going to get back to the arena floor in time to watch the match."
"That is assuming that Kuonji-san and her rather nubile partner can last that long," Kodachi cautioned, "The Golden Pair are said to be ruthless in their area of sport, and few opponents who stand against them do so for very long, or even leave the arena in an upright condition."
"Shampoo and Ucchan won't be that easy to put down," Akane snorted, "And if Senzenen tries anything dirty he's gonna be in for a surprise against Ucchan."
"I salute your loyalty to your...friends," Kodachi pronounced the word with a curious emphasis before adding softly, "But I am being practical here, and time is not in our favor. The longer we delay here..."
"Right," Akane said tightly, "I agree with you on that. You feel good enough to go, Hibiki-san, or do you want Kodachi and me to carry you?"
Nascent pride caused Ryoga to square his shoulders and stoutly ignore the rumbling protest within his stomach, "I can manage on my own. Just...lead the way...I don't think I could find it by myself."
"Yes," Kodachi remarked, "I had heard that you have some difficulty with your direction sense. Have you ever consulted a professional to determine why that is?"
Ryoga did the best he could to glare at the aristocratic dark-haired girl, but as he started to push past her he overheard her murmuring, "Well...so much for a thank you."
That caused him to pause in his tracks, and then Ryoga worked over his pride, remembering the good manners that he had learned from his long-lost mother, which prompted him to say, "Thank you...for rescuing me from that cage. Now let's get to the arena."
Akane paused before taking the lead, turning to Kodachi and murmuring, "Well, what do you know, a Sith actually knows how to say thank you."
"Wonders never cease," Kodachi replied, giving Ryoga a side-glance at his manly profile and contrasting him with the monstrous visage that he had been wearing mere moments before, then sadly shook her head and murmured softly, "It never fails...meet a cute boy and he turns out to be something other than you expected."
Ryoga did not know exactly why that comment caused him to blush fiercely, but he stoutly ignored the involuntary flush, intent as he was in finding Ukyo before anything bad could happen to her, and fearing greatly that they might be too late as either Taro or Senzenen would have time enough to carry out their evil intentions...
A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away...
The Republic had been at peace for over a thousand standard years, since the time of the last great Chaotic campaign where the Jedi had put down the revolt of the Sith and brought order to a weary cosmos. All was not well in paradise, however, and there were dark stirring along the fringes, whisperings of shadows rising up once again to threaten the stability dearly bought through the pain, blood and sacrifice of so many.
The Jedi Council had come into being for the sole purpose of insuring that the Sith would never rise again, but now there were definite signs that the serpents had been let loose in paradise and it was all that the Council could do to trace down the source of this re-infestation. The Dark side was out of balance to the Light and someone was pulling the strings and manipulating people, and as a consequence a good man had died needlessly from a scourge they had thought long ago to have been abolished. The Council got the message loud and clear and had vowed to investigate the matter, yet so far nothing had come of their intensive probes into the looming shadows.
Still and all it became clear that someone had trained the assassin who called himself Darth Maul, that a powerful fighter able to go toe-to-toe against two experienced Jedi could not have gotten that good without a teacher knowledgeable in the ways of the Force. Clearly there was a Master to this Sith who was lurking well hidden within the background, and so a new course was adopted and the Council commissioned one of its own to spearhead a new investigation. Trieste had volunteered to be their "point man," and thus began an odyssey that would bring her near to the truth, albeit too late to avert the coming Armageddon.
Trieste had been with the Council for a number of years, yet she was by far the youngest and lowest ranking member of the group, and still a bit "wet behind the ears" on matters not relating at all towards her skills as a Jedi Mistress. She had been adopted into the Jedi Corps at an early age and was apprenticed to a senior Jedi for almost fifteen years before being allowed to undertake the trials that established her right to be called a full-fledged Jedi. In that time she had seen much of the known Universe and was well equipped to handle herself in many an exotic locale, and her experiences had earned her much wisdom and praise among her peers, and in time her feats had been recognized by the Jedi Council, which adopted her as a formal member to replace her predecessor upon her retirement from active adventuring.
Trieste had been greatly awed to sit in the presence of senior Jedi that included such living legends as Mace Windom and Master Yoda. She had sat in council listening more often than offering comment, but those times when she had spoken her words had carried weight and were accepted as something more than youthful exuberance. This was extremely gratifying as she knew her voice was that of a young woman still many decades shy of being their peer, but while she was far from the youngest Jedi ever to share a seat in the Council, she was keenly aware of being far less adept in the ways of the Force than her fellow Councilors, which often led her to wonder why she had been asked to join in the first place.
Master Yoda said it was to offer the perspective of a younger person, while Mace Windom offered that her role was that of someone active and energetic who could serve the Council as more than just another sedentary armchair theorist. She understood that to mean that she could go places that other council members might lack the time and energy to handle. That accounted for her often being dispatched to far away places, to make evaluations and give testament of her observations to the Council. She was doing the legwork that kept the Council informed about the Universe at large, and in time she came to accept her role as vital and necessary, and she performed her missions with routine efficiency and daring.
Yet still she did not undertake the sort of wild adventures that she had known in her youth, and over time she felt herself growing soft and complacent as her duties were less eventful than those of actual Jedi in the field doing missions of vital importance to universal peace, often at great peril, as was the case of Qui Gon Jin, a man she much envied from afar. Now there was a Jedi Knight who embodied the best that was in their order, and perhaps he was a bit prideful and aloof and more of a rebel than other Jedi, still he spoke his own mind and acted from the heart as a Jedi should do. Against her will she found herself admiring him on other levels, even feeling a stray thought or two that tempted her beyond the limits of what was proper for a Jedi.
Yet always the code came to mind, and her rigid obedience to the teachings of her mentor, the code that had been laid down by the council over a thousand years before in the wake of their battles with the Sith in an effort to prevent a recurrence of what led to the creation of the Dark Jedi:
"A Jedi shall know neither anger, nor hate, nor love..."
A harsh code, one that demanded much study and self-sacrifice, for the power of a Jedi arose more from the heart than from the intellect or body. Learning to love in a general sense meant regarding all life as precious and sacred. This contrasted sharply with the ability to kill when one encountered a life form that was at odds with the cause of life itself...the killers and vicious criminal types who took without sharing and left sorrow in their wake. Being a Jedi often meant being a surgeon dealing with the cancers of society, and it was knowing when to cut-and when not to-that made a Jedi Knight apart from other warriors and adventures who carried lethal weapons. That meant that they had to keep apart from other sentient beings and do their loving from afar, for tomorrow they might be forced to kill, and the Universe itself would judge the rightness of their actions.
She had believed this for many years, and indeed her adventures had seemed to reinforce her training for she could feel by the Force how innocents suffered while injustice prevailed, especially in the outer provinces where Republican justice was seen more in the breech than the observance. Getting involved on the personal level was dangerous, even reckless and could lead one onto the path of the Dark Side. That was what Master Yoda stressed over and over again, and he was by far the oldest and wisest of the Jedi. Surely he must know better than any what dangers lay in store for those who allowed themselves to be governed by their emotions, and so she denied her own womanhood, ignored the calling of her heart and stood steadfast and resolute as a loyal member of her order.
And then Qui Gon Jin was dead and gone, and the opportunity to seek him out was denied to her forever.
It still pained her to recall the events that led up to the demise of one of the greatest of the Jedi. She recalled being present when Qui Gon and his young Padawan, Obiwan Kenobi, had brought a young child to the Council for training. Trieste remembered looking into the eyes of the boy and finding herself briefly lost into the depths of those incredible sky blue orbs, feeling the impact of the Force that flowed within him. Untrained, unknowing, innocent of many things, far too knowledgeable of other terrible things far beyond his age group. She watched in silence as he was tested and verified, and the findings were incredible, for the boy unquestionably had the greatest potential of any young candidate ever to enter the halls of the Jedi.
And yet...
Master Yoda had insisted. The boy knew Fear, he had tasted too much of life and was not a blank slate that they could write upon. Bonds of love attached him to his mother and that left him vulnerable to the Dark Side, and thus he was too dangerous to receive their training. Too many things could go wrong to turn the boy's tremendous potential towards evil emotions, and thus they would deny his calling. To do otherwise was to leave the Jedi themselves open to future betrayal and outside manipulation.
Qui Gon-not surprisingly-had rejected the Council's wisdom and insisted that this Anakin Skywalker become his Padawan in spite of Yoda's judgement. It was a more intense dispute from that of any other that Trieste had witnessed between them (and she had heard rumors about other occasions that predated her joining the ranks of the council). Trieste had thought him foolhardy and reckless, but at the same time she had felt sympathy and admiration of the man's integrity and forthrightness.
In truth the boy was clearly the product of unusual circumstances, but that did not justify giving up on him just because he had some life experiences denied many candidates, especially the ones adopted as orphans by the Jedi. It was wrong to deny his potential the way the Council had done, as if turning him loose into the world was any better than seeking to guide him into mastering his fear and turning it towards the perfect love that would be needed by the Jedi.
All of that came to the fore when Trieste had learned of the death of a man she had idolized from a distance. Though she did not actively blame the council for the events leading to Qui Gon's death, she had felt an unaccountable sadness and grief at his loss, and a need to discover the true identity of his killer. She had thus prevailed upon the council to give her leave to explore this issue, and-against his own stated reluctance-Yoda himself had given her a leave of absence to satisfy her unvoiced hunger, and so she had begun her quest to learn the secret of the return of the Sith, confident in the knowledge that Obiwan would assume the mantle of Anakin's training.
At the beginning all that she had to go by was a name that had been obtained from the captured emissary of the Trade Federation, Darth Maul, the Sith who had ruthlessly murdered Qui Gon in support of the Trade Federation's occupation of planet Nabu. By description Maul was identified as being from a race known as the Kolnar, yet when Trieste had visited their home system she had learned only scant details about a clan outcast who had disappeared some ten standard years ago without a trace of his passing. The mystery intensified the more she delved into the tattered life behind this renegade Kolnar's fierce visage, yet while the trial had gone strangely cold over the years, the rumors of a shadowy figure who had been seen in his presence near the end only confirmed in Trieste's mind that he had been recruited by a Sith Lord and trained to be a living weapon against the Jedi.
More investigation had lead her to a very different system not far removed from Kolnar, and there on the desolate edge of the Republic she had discovered a planet named Vielza, a hot jungle world with many swamps and deserts fringing the borders of what passed for civilization, and there came upon a place that her sources claimed was the property of a shadowy figure named Sidious whom no one had ever claimed to meet directly. There she discovered a hidden stronghold that she became convinced was the training ground of a Sith Lord, yet the most curious thing in her investigations was a connection to one Senator Palpatine of planet Nabu, a man only recently elevated to the ranks of Supreme Chancellor of the Republic itself, a discovery that had potentially universe-shaking potential.
Trieste had met Palpatine on many formal occasions and had felt an instinctive dislike of the man that went beyond anything reasonable that she could suggest upon conscious reflection. There was something about the fellow that was too slick and oily, like a cunning beast who hid his true intent from others behind clever words that were aimed at masking his hidden meanings. Other than that she had been rather unimpressed with the fellow, taking him for a typical politician who was out for his own grandeur and thus not interesting enough to be worth the attention of a Jedi.
Yet what if that were only the outward mask that the fellow wore to hide the man who existed beneath the fa ade? What if Palpatine were somehow a very different man from what others took him to be, and what if he were the very opposite of the thing that he pretended? Could it be possible for such a one to conceal his thoughts so carefully that even the Jedi would not sense what was hidden underneath? Was it even conceivable that he was the silent puppet master responsible for manipulating the events surrounding Nabu, and who had dispatched Darth Maul as his agent to either destroy or discredit the Jedi? But to have such an ability of masking himself against even Yoda's perceptions would imply mind skills far beyond that possessed by any ordinary sentient. In fact, only a Jedi of great skill could wear one face while hiding the other so thoroughly, a Jedi or...
A Sith Lord.
How many times had Yoda lectured her upon the cunning deceits of the Sith and how difficult it was to perceive the movements of the Dark Side? What if Sidious and Palpatine were one and the same? In which case it would mean that the Republic itself was now in the hands of a Sith Lord. The thought was indeed quite chilling, and yet it made perfect sense in light of all the jagged pieces that she had been trying to put together in her investigation. Of course this was mere speculation on her part, but if she presented her findings to Yoda and the others they might be able to yield the proof that would be needed to discredit or exposed Palpatine, which meant that she had to return in great haste or else miss their one opportunity to save the Republic from certain disaster.
Before she could make such a move, however, she found herself being confronted by a man whom she thought certain she could have trusted under better circumstances. Imagine her surprise upon meeting the mentor of her old teacher, Count Doku. Doku seemed to know something about her travels and investigation, and he had come looking for her with the intent of learning what she had discovered. She naturally (and quite naively) told him all the facts that she had so far to date gathered and he complimented her upon her thoroughness, expressed shock and concern upon learning of the implications against Palpatine and agreed at once to support her when she presented her discoveries before the council so that they could stop the Sith before they could carry through on their evil intentions.
And then he tried to kill her...and almost succeeded.
Looking back on that event Trieste could see how foolish she had been, lowering her guard for a crucial minute in the presence of an elder Jedi statesmen whom she had much respected in the past. Doku's attack had been cunningly planned down to the last detail, and he succeeded in wounding her with his Light Saber, yet at the last minute Trieste had fallen through a shaft and wound up tumbling off the side of a cliff into the desolate valley that had lain beneath the iron complex. Doku appeared to have been satisfied that she had met her demise, and her life signs must have been low enough that he had mistaken her for one either dead or dying. Her agony had been great and it was a certainty that without medical aid she would have died anyway within a matter of hours.
Instead she woke up an eternity later finding herself in some manner of primitive hut being tended to by one of the locals, a reptilian Lizard Man whose name-she shortly thereafter discovered-was Mudge.
Mudge was a craftsman and a former warrior of his tribe of desert-dwelling Slith nomads, scavengers who eked out a living by trading and farming with local Vielza villages for basic needs and whatever articles of technology that they could not produce for themselves. He was also a half-way competent healer with a wide knowledge of Apothecary medicines, some of which were even more effective than more conventional treatments, as he demonstrated for her by treating the wounds inflicted upon her by the treacherous Doku.
Still and all her healing process took time and she was forced to abide with Mudge, allowing him to care for her while she gradually learned something about his people, culture and language. In time she came to understand something about the complex social arrangements that bound his clan together, and she got to know several of his closest relatives, including a clan-brother named Sludge, who took an instant disliking to her since she was "Urkast," or, "not-clan," meaning that she was human, not Slith. Sludge especially disapproved of her close association with Mudge, in spite of them being "just friends" (insofar as either of them would admit to the subject).
Yet Trieste was restless and wanted to get back to the galactic civilization to which she was accustomed. She had urgent news to share with the rest of the Jedi Council...and for some peculiar reason she seemed unable to reach them on a psychic level. There was some sort of interference blocking out her ability to communicate by long range with the Force, as though some dark vortex were obstructing long-range communication...and Doku had long ago disposed of the ship that she had used to arrive upon this planet. The elders tightly monitored commerce with the outside, and they did not want her to leave their midst until they were fully convinced that she would not betray their innermost secrets to the "Outsiders." Time and again she was frustrated in her efforts to find a means of leaving the planet, and all the while the universe beyond went about its ways without the knowledge she held being shared with her fellow Jedi.
She had lost her Light saber during her fight against Doku, and without it she lacked the means of forcing her will against the Elders. There was no way of obtaining the parts that she needed to build another one, and the Slith were too primitive to manufacture the tools and materials that would be needed. She had to bide her time and gather her strength to herself, and so she practiced what patience she had and sought to find a means of escaping her virtual prison. She was not physically prohibited from traveling within the range of Slith territorial boundaries, yet the wilderness was perilous and she might fall prey to roving marauders. There was also the possibility that Doku himself might have posted agents to keep watch against her continued survival, and so she had to wait and find another way of escaping from this hostile planet, doing as much as she could to befriend the locals while having to endure their near-continuous hostility and suspicion.
And through it all there was Mudge to offer her his wise and patient counsel. Trieste had never known a man like him, so at peace with his surroundings, to much at ease with his fellow living creature. A warrior until he had been severely wounded in battle, he had taken to forcible retirement as though he had been given a promotion, and his clawed hands were incredibly skilled when it came to carving rock and wood into pleasing shapes that he would carefully sand down until their surface gleamed like living plastic. His words would often soothe her nerves when her own patience was tested to its limit, and when he sang a song of his clan his voice was surprisingly soothing yet uplifting. His constant presence became a comfort for her, and she began to see him more than just a scaly-faced lizard man, she began to see the noble being within him, and in discovering his inner core found herself greatly drawn to the light that burned so brightly within him.
Almost against her will she was becoming attached to him, both emotionally and spiritually, fully against the Code of the Jedi that barred such personal associations. At last she knew that she had to confront the issue with Mudge directly, and to no great surprise discovered that he had advice of his own to share in regards to her concerns, as well as the code that she was breaching:
"You Jedi put such stock in being aloof from other beings," he said with that oddly sardonic tilt of his head that always conveyed both perception and amusement, "Yet what is your code but selfishness, keeping your wisdom to yourselves rather than sharing your knowledge with others."
"You are calling us elitist?" she had protested, "But we are the guardians and protectors of the Republic, and to share what we know would risk exposing them to ideas for which they are not ready..."
"And why is it that they are not ready?" Mudge readily countered, "Can it be that you have not trusted them to make good use of your knowledge? You speak often of the temptations of the Dark side of the Force, yet people fall prey to those temptations all the time because they are not aware of the source of their temptation. Do you honestly think that anyone would choose to do evil if he were fully aware of the spiritual consequences of their actions?"
"Yes," Trieste protested, "I have known many beings who take great delight in doing evil..."
"Because they know no other way to live," Mudge calmly noted, "And what have you done to show them an alternative? What is evil itself but the corruption of otherwise good impulses? Greed is only the excessive desire for the means to support ones self, far beyond what is adequate. Hate is but the rage we feel towards those whom we fear or resent for some personal reason. Anger is a response to a perceived threat posed to our very being, or towards our identity, as when my brother rages at you for being Urkast."
"Well, what about your own people and the way you clannishly refuse to allow me contact with my own people?" Trieste then angrily attempted to counter, "You are holding me here as a virtual prisoner simply because you fear to let me tell the universe that you exist..."
"I will not defend the foolishness of my kin in their insistence that you remain with us," Mudge answered, "But you have to concede that they have good grounds for their suspicion. After all, it was a Jedi who created that stronghold near where I found you, and a Jedi who injured you, and there is fear that any revelation that you have lived with us for so long might bring the wrath of that renegade down upon our villages. Can you assure us that this would not happen, that you could be discrete about your whereabouts for the past several years and somehow can convince your fellow Council members to keep secret your activities while here, not even knowing for a fact which other Jedi there might be who would side with your enemies in violation of this code of which you speak so highly?"
Trieste could not think of a reason that would countermand his wisdom, and she had to privately concede that there was a danger that the Jedi Council had been undermined far worse than the mere defection of Count Doku. After all, if Chancellor Palpatine himself were behind the rise of the Sith and the rebellion of the Trade Federation, then certainly the conspiracy might run even deeper than she could imagine. Just showing up out of no where with no explanation of her whereabouts was a tacit invitation for Doku to trace her back to the Slith and visit upon them the most terrible of reprisals...
Despite her knowing this she still felt an unaccountable wave of fear taking hold over her being, and after so many years of remaining calm and aloof over her emotions she found the call of the Dark side within her caused her to erupt like a volcano, spewing out angry words and denouncements in the direction of the nearest available target. It was frightening how easy it was to give in to the rule of her own long-suppressed emotions, and to turn her unexpected rage towards one who had never offered her anything but kindness...
Surprisingly Mudge seemed to anticipate her volatile explosion and moved to counter it despite the heavy weights kicked up by the mind-storm of her telekinesis. With his huge frame he resisted her brief tirade, wrapping her in his arms and holding on firmly, not hard enough to hurt but with just enough force to ride out the waves of Force that stirred around her. Only when the moment passed and she regained hold over her emotions did she become cognizant of what she was doing, and then she clamped down hard, shutting off the flow with as much fierceness as she had employed in their release
For a long time after this she clung to Mudge, holding tightly to his scaly frame while she breathed in the scent of his sandalwood aroma. It was strangely comforting to find herself embraced in this manner, and oddly it reminded her of what it must have felt like to be held by her mother...a memory so dim and fleeting that she could not even be certain that it was real or just the product of her lonely imagination.
Then, from a very long distance outside her small little world, she heard the being holding her remark, "It's never easy letting go...and how long has it been that you've been holding that inside you?"
"I beg your pardon?" Trieste managed to ask in quiet confusion.
The warmth of his laugh surprised her as he explained, "You Jedi try ignoring your emotions, yet in the end emotion is the source of your strength, at the very heart of your power. You fear to act from the heart, yet in the end this fear is what limits you. To be as one, to flow with the Force of your very spirit, you must acknowledge that the source of your strength is compassion...just as your enemies use fear as a weapon...and who has been gaining the most lately? That must be the riddle of your very being."
"I fear to act from the heart...because my heart is a stranger these days," Trieste admitted, feeling the beat of her heart as it hammered loudly within her chest, clinging to the brawny chest of the lizard man as she felt the force of his spirit calling out to her, and suddenly it did not matter that they were from two entirely different species.
That night she discovered more about their anatomical differences, and it was a wondrous revelation, discovering how the nerve centers of his body differed from her own, and with that discovery she further learned how skilled the hands of a craftsman were when employed to the art of consummate pleasure. His body was harder than hers and yet yielded smoothly to her touch with the smoothness of well oiled leather. Her body was softer and more yielding, yet possessed of hidden strength and tensile flexibility that seemed to fascinate him ever so much as she yielded to his embrace. His kind was certainly equipped differently and had a far different function than mammalian sex organs, yet they found a way of bridging the gap between anatomies to achieve a union that was whole and perfect unto itself, uniting them as one being for the brief time that they shared a point of mutual satiation, after which everything melted into a wondrous languor of writhing limbs and bodies, resulting in a tenderness the like for which there is no earthly description...
It was never their intention for either of them to fulfill the dire prophesies of Mudge's brother, yet they had somehow become lovers in a very real sense, and for the first time ever Trieste abandoned the Code that had been at the very center of her life. She learned that, in point of fact, embracing her emotions did not weaken her or leave her open to the manipulations of the Dark side. Rather it opened her up to the wonders of the universe on a level that she had never before imagined, and suddenly everything around her was new and original. Even the deserts and swamps that she had known and explored for the several years of her imposed exile seemed more alive to her than ever, and every living thing spoke to her in a song of joy and celebration. The Force flowed more clearly within her, and she understood at last how everything was connected from the earthly to the most transcendent level of their universal being.
For the first time in her young life she knew what true happiness could mean, and she was content to languish in his brawny arms for many a night of bliss during which time she briefly forgot all about her plans for leaving his world and seeking contact with the Jedi. Yet in time Mudge himself grew restless, and he understood on a level beyond words that she needed to have closure, to complete her original mission in order to find true contentment.
That was when he proposed to her a means for overcoming the curious dark force that was blocking her from achieving full contact with the Jedi, and with her new found awareness of a universal purpose to all things she listened carefully to his words and saw the wisdom of his perception.
"You fear the Dark and cling to the light, yet what is darkness without light? What is light without shadow? Is one truly capable of being complete without the other? Can your Jedi truly know the Force if they shun the half of it that is unknown to them? Why then not embrace the Darkness and accept it as a part of your very being? You do not need to let the Darkness rule you...denying it only leads to that end, as you so recently discovered."
She understood at last what he was saying to her, and it was as if a light had opened up in her mind, exposing her to a new perception of the Force that had been beyond her previous comprehension. Light and Darkness were meant to be in balance, yet they had been out of balance for so long due to the result of the previous Sith war, when the Dark had sought to swallow the Light and plunge the universe into chaos and disorder.
Yet what was Darkness but the shadow that Light created by its absence, and could the one truly exist without the other? Obviously not...nor did one have to succumb to the darkness by merely acknowledging its existence. One could feel the presence of the Dark the same way that one felt heat, cold or any other kind of sensation...and the Dark was indeed quite cold, yet the universe was full of both elements keeping the temperature of the living planets in perfect balance so that life might be sustained, for life could not exist at the extremes of such polarity. Too much heat and you burned, too much cold and you froze, yet adjust the balance to the right degree and you had the comfort zone where life was most in harmony and completion.
And so she did not need to shun the Dark for fear that it would contaminate and corrupt her. All she needed to do was relax and allow her feelings to stretch outward until she could feel the source of the Dark contamination, then feel her way around and beyond it, feeling the light that surrounded the darkness, and thus discover the currents of life energy that she could tap into for long-
distance communion.
She was only just beginning to master this technique, however, when Sludge appeared once more in their lives, full of wrath and righteous vengeance as he angrily denounced his brother and called him a traitor to their very species. He had revealed to their Elders that Mudge was aiding the outsider woman and had behaved unnaturally around her, and for that he had obtained permission to "correct" the family problem using the means that he had gained from contact with yet another outsider...a shadowy figure whom Trieste knew at once could be none other than Count Doku.
Because she lacked a Light saber she was powerless to defend herself when Sludge came after her using the laser weapon that his new mentor had provided. Clearly Sludge was a worse traitor to the edict of the Elders than his brother, yet still he had learned cunning and deception from his benefactor and fully intended to employ his new abilities to the destruction of the Jedi Knight within their midst. Mudge came to her rescue, defying both his brother and Elders to protect Trieste...and paid for it with his mortal body.
The sight of him falling-even as she felt the pain of a Light saber cutting into his sweet body-momentarily shocked and immobilized the young Jedi, yet Trieste rallied in the end and overcame Sludge with her newly gained perceptions, calling upon powers no ordinary Jedi her age should have been able to master, and with a righteous fury unlike any she had ever known she drove her enemy away after depriving him of his outsider weapons.
Then she went to the elders and confronted them with the truth, revealed to them the extent of Sludge's duplicity and openly accused them of acceding to the murder of a good and decent man, for which they had lost face and authority and could no longer legally bar her from taking her leave of their lands, and on foot made her sojourn to the nearest civilized outpost.
None dared bar her way that day for she had grown so far beyond them that they could feel her power without understanding its true nature. She took the first shuttle that landed at the trade depot (one she had, in fact, summoned from afar by using the Force to influence the pilot from a distance) and by means eventually arrived back on Coruscant for her long-delayed report to the Jedi council.
To say that much had changed during her absence would be a severe understatement, and she was dismayed to learn that over the years of her absence Chancellor Palpatine had grabbed up more power for himself than had ever been held by any man in the thousand years of the Republic. He had duped and manipulated the Senate into granting him an army to put down a rebellion that he himself had engineered, and lured many a Jedi into a fateful ambush at the battle of Geonosis, and by trickery had undermined the very mechanisms that might have otherwise been employed to rein in his authority. Worse still he now had a loyal army of manufactured Clones serving under him that had been commissioned by Count Doku for the express purpose of providing his true master with the means for universal conquest.
Palpatine had become a tyrant, yet one who cleverly disguised his ambitions behind a mask of insincere contrition, claiming to have been reluctant forced to take draconian steps to avoid the dissolution of the Republic, but in actuality he had done more to single-handedly discredit and undermine the Republic than any man before him. Worse still there was no tangible proof that she could provide to implicate the fiend for the many crimes that he had engineered by working through the shadows. More than ever she became convinced that Palpatine was a Sith Lord, the more so as her newfound perception of the Darkness made her aware that his aura was all but unreadable, hinting that it was somehow masked against even the perceptions of a Jedi.
She shared these observations with Yoda and Mace Windom in private and found her worst fears confirmed as they cautioned her against openly denouncing the Chancellor and risking a worse backlash against the Jedi than the one they already sensed was forthcoming. Against her own heart she found herself agreeing with them that caution would be needed to unmask Palpatine's true nature before the Senate, yet before they could devise a means for his impeachment the Sith Lord struck with savage suddenness, bringing down the wrath of his dark forces in an effort to crush the one impediment to his goal of total universal domination.
Before that happened Trieste had a meaningful confrontation with Yoda over what had happened to her during her time among the Slith, and as she revealed the extent to which she gone against the Code and its proscriptions she had expected the old toad to react in disgust, revulsion and denial. Much to her dismay, however, she learned that Yoda himself was coming around to question the very essence of his own beliefs on this very matter, and then the ancient Jedi Master informed her of other events taking place beyond her knowing.
He told Trieste about the young Jedi Knight that was Anakin Skywalker and what the boy had done to bring surprise and alarm among the more sensitive members of the Council. Trieste was appalled to hear about what had happened to young Anakin when he rashly visited his home world of Tattoine and learned of the terrible fate that had befallen his mother during his absence. Yoda told of how he and Mace had felt the boy's rage turn to hate and then to murderous violence, and how afterwards the boy had compounded his trespass towards the Dark side by giving into the temptation of loving a Senator named Padme Admadala, and that the two of them had secretly wed, believing that they could conceal such a thing from the awareness of the Council.
Trieste was greatly saddened for the boy's deep loss and the toll that it had taken upon this promising young Jedi, but more she was fairly outraged to the point of denouncing her superior, declaring angrily, "It was wrong to keep the boy apart from his mother for so long. It was wrong to have him deny the urgency of his own feelings or he might have acted sooner and spared her life, and thus the lives of those he was compelled to slaughter. Would you now have him deny the one spark of human contact that is left to him in order to satisfy the archaic demands of an outmoded prohibition?"
"Call you it outmoded?" Yoda bristled while seeming to manifest only a slight annoyance at her tone of accusation, "For a thousand years the code has serve us, yet you would insist that in error we have been? Blindly arrogant are you that lecture us you would?"
"Yes," she said without flinching in the face of the aged mentor to her mentor's mentor, "Your own former apprentice proves my point by his betrayal, or do you insist that Count Doku got the way he is by following the code...or by willfully going beyond it to embrace his own Dark side?"
At that she felt Yoda yield to her anger and say, "Right you are that flawed is the Code of the Jedi. Many times have I wondered at the source of our own imbalance and why the Jedi have always felt incomplete and somehow lacking an important element of our nature. Proved my point you have, and now we stand at the precipice because underestimated our enemies we have. Now prepared the Chancellor is to seize the advantage provided him we have, and little see I that we can do to stave off what is to happen."
His words proved prophetic as the days of the Jedi were surely numbered, and not long after this conversation Palpatine indeed made his move against the Jedi, and-more horrifying still-he contrived to recruit Anakin Skywalker onto his side, turning the young Jedi against his fellow Knights and employing him to ruthlessly hunt down and exterminate those whom he could find with the same merciless fury that he had used against the Sand People who had killed his beloved mother.
Trieste had been off on a mission when this happened and would have come to the aid of her people save that she had a fateful encounter of her own with a much empowered Sludge seeking her death. He had changed his identity and taken on the name of Darth Purge and was far more powerful than at their last encounter, and he clearly had the advantage this time, having gotten the drop on her during a battle near the fringes of known space. Indeed, had she not abandoned her ship for that escape pod near the end she no doubt would have joined her fellow Jedi in mass extinction. Instead she had fallen into a wormhole and wound up in an entirely different (and previously unknown) section of space, a galaxy far beyond the one that had been home to her, yet which was now as dear to her as the home that she and Mudge had once shared together.
All of this passed through her mind in an instant as she waxed nostalgic, seeing the young pair of Force Masters contending against this so-called Golden Pair on the ice arena. How young and innocent they seemed, how little they truly comprehended of the ways of the Force and the many things that she had yet to teach them. In a lot of ways she felt a bit of envy for their youth, yet she was grateful that they had not had to endure the childhood of loneliness and isolation that she had once experienced, even granted that her time with young Kasumi had been like reliving her own days as a Padawan Jedi.
A voice beside her drew her fully back into the moment, "I thought Jedi were supposed to keep their focus upon the present, my love, not indulge in wool gathering when they are supposedly studying the trials of their current students."
Trieste could not help smiling at her adopted sister-wife, "You have caught me in the act I fear, Kimiko-chan, and I plead guilty to your accusation. Forgive my wandering off like that...it is just that I had a moment of reflection, and I am thinking very much that these young people are showing far more promise than even I was prepared to accept."
"You are forgiven," Kimiko chuckled softly, "But we have to set a good example for the children if we want them to respect us, is that not right, Soun-chan?"
"Eh?" Soun responded, clearly more focused upon the fight than either of his two lady companions, "Um...yes, of course. That's why they look up to us after all, we have the experience that age and wisdom alone can bring to a warrior."
"Still," Kimiko mused, "There is something to be said for youthful exuberance, eh Trieste-chan?"
"Oh, yes indeed," Trieste readily agree, eyeing the trio of young people directly before them and smiling as her focus drifted upon the invisible ties that she could sense growing between them, especially the one who was in the centermost place of the affections of the other two young ladies.
[Yes indeed,] Trieste mused silently within herself, [There is much about this young man that reminds me of young Anakin...and he, too, is full of much fear and promise. Yet still I will not allow history to repeat itself by allowing such a one to fall prey to his own Dark side. I must somehow guide him to overcoming his fears and finding the love that can make him as great as any Jedi...and my delightful charges will be instrumental in helping him along to this destiny that awaits him...]
Unknown to her, however, there was another quite nearby who had intentions of his own for the young man and his two lady iinazuke.
[Mammals never look up,] Darth Purge thought to himself as he scaled the rafters that supported the high domed ceiling overlooking the sporting arena, [Always they will look to the side, never above or below, which is curious since they claim to have descended from a tree-dwelling species].
He was almost in position, making his way carefully to a point directly above his intended targets, moving slowly so as not to attract attention while masking his presence with the forceful concentration of his Sith abilities. Blending in with shadows and hiding in plain sight were but two of the skills that he had perfected during his stay on this miserably primitive planet, and by casting his will not to be seen on even the psychic level he assured that even Trieste's vaunted abilities would not perceive him until it was too late to escape his vengeance.
[At last I will have you in my clawed grasp, Pink-Skin] he mused to himself without daring to project the thought and give away his presence, [You will die by my hand for the disgrace you brought to my clan by seducing my fool brother. Pod-mate that he was, he had to pay the penalty for bringing dishonor to us all, and soon you will join your worthless lover in death, along with these pitiable fools whom you have taken for family. They all must die...all save the ones I choose to use for my own purposes, and then the Sith will finally triumph over the Jedi and the Dark side will grant me power unmeasured. It is only a matter of mere moments now...and then the patience of many years will at last bear fruit my dear, doomed Jedi].
He allowed himself a moment to reflect upon his former apprentice, seeing Ukyo preparing herself to renew hostilities against this fool named Senzenen. He remembered tasting the fury and the glory of the Dark side that had been swelling within her only moments before this instant, but then something had gone wrong and she had lost her concentration. The fury had inexplicably flicked and died out of her like a candle wick blown out by a careless wind, and in its place he sensed dismay and confusion at her own actions, along with a curious sense of protectiveness that she extended towards the Jedi Force Mistress who skated beside her.
[Ukyo,] Purge thought to himself with a disgust that bordered upon pity, [How did you come to such a state, you who were on the verge of something truly awe inspiring? If you had allowed the Dark to fully rise within you I would claim you once again as my pupil...instead you squander your potential over maudlin sentimentality for another female? What is she to you besides a moment's casual diversion? You surely cannot have grown so fond of her that you would throw away the benefits of my teaching?]
No matter, at the moment he could not afford such a distraction, and grateful he was that there were so many unshielded human minds in the gathering ranks of the arena since the raw emotions that they were churning out were helping to baffle and distract the perceptions of the Jedi. Amid a sea of such intensity it was doubtful that even Trieste could have perceived his looming threat to her further existence. A few moments more would prove the issue, and then Purge would know such triumph as would exceed the black ambitions of his own dread teachers.
[Soon,] he vowed to himself as he bided for patience, [Very soon...and once Taro provides the distraction that I will need it will be time to strike, and with it the end of the Jedi will be affected, and then I will rule supreme upon this world as the only true Master of the Force...and such an empire I will carve here with my chosen minions and the organization that we will build together...]
And so he continued to make his way towards the place from which he intended to strike from above, biding his energies until the crucial point to come...a moment he could taste like the savory flavor of raw meat on his tongue, a feast that had been long denied him yet soon would claim like the proverbial dish served cold on a golden platter...
Continued.
Comments/Criticisms/Critical Force Junctures: shadowmane
The battle between the Golden Pair and the Force Masters resumes with interest as Ukyo and Senzenen butt heads, but will the real battle between Sith and Jedi eclipse even their rivalry? Find out next time in: "Winter Whirlwind," or, "Clash of the Bishonen Hentai!" Be there!
X