Thanks
to everyone who wrote a review. You
guys simply rock! ^_^
(-.-) Look! It's Yoda!
Discord:
::mocks Kosk for no apparent reason::
Kosk:
::sulks::
Discord: For all the Star Wars authors out there who
have Napster (Woo hoo! Goooo Naspter!),
you should all download the techno remixes of the Star Wars songs. Listening to them while you're writing
really gets you in the mood.
The Jedi-thing smiled. "Mallor Kinatai. He'll be… glad… that you remember him."
Obi-Wan suddenly realized that his lungs were
screaming at him, and that he hadn't drawn a breath since he had stumbled. He broke past the barrier in his throat to
gasp weakly. "He had the… He had
the gall, the nerve to come back here?" Obi-Wan realized that his voice's pitch was rising almost to the
point of embarrassment, but it was a background observation.
Ookah glanced back at him, noticing the youth's
panic. He chewed on the inside of his
cheek angrily, drawing a droplet of blood from it. He swallowed it, rolling his copper-flavored tongue around his
mouth. "Yes. And he specifically asked for you,
creature. Do you know how much trouble
I had to go through to get to you?" Ookah breathed heavily for a moment, before asserting his Jedi training
to calm himself. "No matter. I have you now." He held up his hand, and the entire little
party halted in front of a door. He
grinned devilishly. "And here we
are."
Neevik played with the short chain that connected
his handcuffs. He closed his eyes under
the façade of stretching. He sent out a
tendril of the Force, tracing along the lock of the handcuffs. It would be easy to unlock.
Now, to keep an eye on more important things…
He glanced uneasily at Kinatai, who currently had
Kenobi in a headlock and was whispering in his ear.
Obi-Wan thrashed in the hold, but to no avail. There was no effect on Mallor's thick
arm. The Shadow Jedi hissed roughly
into the Human's ear. "Do you know
why Qui-Gon isn't here? Do you know?"
Obi-Wan halted his struggles, for no other reason
besides the fact that he was tired. Exhausted, even.
Satisfied that his query was making things much
easier, Mallor relaxed his hold slightly, but repeated his question. "You poor soul, you don't even know
why." His lips curled into a feral
smile that Obi-Wan couldn't see. "He doesn't care about you. He wasn't there because he didn't want to be there. He thinks you're a slimy little
bottom-crawler, and that you belong out on the streets of Coruscaunt. And I mean the bottom streets, under
the cloud cover."
Obi-Wan yanked on the arm encircling his neck, to no
avail.
Mallor tightened his hold again. "He only took you as his apprentice
because he already made that mental connection. It'll always be there, and now he's cursing himself for making
it! He didn't want an apprentice. Not after what happened to his…
friend."
Through his anger and confusion, the young Jedi's
curiosity was piqued. "Who? What friend? What happened?"
Mallor chuckled quietly. "Suddenly we're all questions."
Obi-Wan licked his dry lips nervously, pondering the
repercussions of what he was about to do. He decided that the risk was worth it. "If you tell me… I won't try to get out."
Mallor out-right laughed at that. "Oh, you're not going anywhere. But I'll humor you and let you go. I'll even terminate that promise you just
made me. Feel free to try to
escape any time you please." With
this mocking statement, he released Kenobi, who stumbled back, holding a hand
to his aching neck.
Mallor sat back in the same 'polite conversation'
position that he'd been in the last time that he'd abducted Obi-Wan. He glanced at Neevik, Kosk, and Son'Jai, who
were still huddled in the corner, and smiled snidely. "Looks like they get the story for free."
The Shadow Jedi steepled his fingers, looking pensive. "Where to start, where to start…"
He was silent for a moment, before continuing.
"Quite a while ago, Qui-Gon Jinn was naught but
an apprentice, but he was the apprentice to Yoda. Thus, I'm surprised that anybody wonders why his skills are so
fantastic. However, Qui-Gon was quite
the, ah, stick in the mud. He was
silent, somber, and serious. This made
it all the more surprising when he and Tanii Lamkorl became such good
friends.
"Tanii was the opposite of Qui-Gon in every
way. He was pretty much the class
clown, who did whatever he pleased. He
was rather short, which allowed him to fit into small places, and he kept his
hair dyed in a variety of colors."
Obi-Wan surreptitiously examined Mallor's bald head.
"Even through all of his clowning, Tanii was a
stellar student, excelling at all of his studies. Except for one subject, on education of the Dark Side."
Mallor noted Obi-Wan's look of confusion. "Don't take that class anymore,
eh? I'd expect no less from the Jedi hypocrites." He heaved a sigh, seeming genuinely displeased,
and continued.
"He didn't understand the class because he
didn't understand that there could only be two sides of the Force. In fact, he went so far as to lecture the
teacher on his own beliefs; that the Force was not like a coin, with two
surfaces and little purchase in-between, but more like one huge entity. It was the user who decided if they
walked the Light or the Dark.
"Of course, after he voiced this opinion to the
teachers and many of his friends, he found himself being shipped off to the
Agri-Corps. Qui-Gon was helpless to
stop him. Tanii refused to be skimmed
over quite so easily… He returned to the Temple, where he sought out
Qui-Gon. However… Qui-Gon could see the
Darkness beginning to seep into his best friend's soul, and refused the offer
to leave.
"This refusal didn't do anything to calm
Tanii. In fact, he returned two years
later and set what looked incredibly like a bomb in the main air ducts. However, upon defusing it, the Masters found
that they had been deceived. The 'bomb'
was nothing more than a smoke bomb, which would have merely spewed out colored
smoke and nothing more. It would have
done no damage to the ducts.
"Even through this, the Jedi ordered that Tanii
never be allowed back at the Temple, and he was permanently banned, visits to
his friends notwithstanding.
"So… To settle the score, Tanii returned ten
years later and abducted Qui-Gon's future apprentice…"
~*:~*:~*:
Sorry,
not much, I know. I'll do some mo re
when I'm not downloading "Star Wars: Duel of the Fates [Techno
Remix]". Bwahahaha.
Seriously,
more coming very soon. I'm experiencing
the deterioration of my writers' block, and am currently breeding plot bunnies.