As you know I am not big on answering individually. I will say that thelast chapter misled some readers because I put Jinn as the dark Jedi apprentice, slip of the pen and I have changed it.

Let me assure you that YOU READERS is the only reason I write. YES, that's right,I am more shameful than most. If it wasn't for knowing you are reading it, I wouldn't write it. I could just daydream it in my head which is a great deal faster than putting it down on paper, or in this case word processor.

Thank You for the feedback and I will forgive you if it takes awhile to read this. I know that there is a lot of STAR WARS HYPE because of ROTS. I myself have seen it twice.

If you like Xani, I think you might like this chapter!

XOXO

Qui-Gon came out of the small fresher on the Jedi transport ship looking quite a bit different than when he went in. His beard which he had already begun to trim and groom was now immaculately shaped and shorn. The most startling change to his outward transformation was his hair, more specifically his dred-locks. They were gone; detangled, devoid of matted clumps of hair filled with fuzz balls over months of collecting there. Freshly shampooed smoky brown hair made that streaky shade of color from the peppering gray scattered through it, replaced the mess that once his hair. It was gathered together at the base and back of Jinn's neck and hung snugly down his back as was his normal style. A normal hair style for Jinn before his dred-locks days demanded first by his undercover work and after that left that unkempt way by his stubbornness in some over rebellious act for the usually calm demure Jedi Jinn.

Yoda raised his droopy eyes and did not say a word, only nodded his evident approval of having his old looking padawan back.

Qui-Gon sat down beside his master.

"Question I have for you. Better you are?"

Qui-Gon wasn't sure how to take what Yoda had just said.

"Well yes the detangled dreds and a nice hot shower did wonders for me. However, there was nothing really wrong with me in the first place."

"Then wrong with you there is something now. Asked how better you are. Not outside appearance I care about though improvement to the eyes to look at uponyou are now. Wonder how you are here, in here Qui-Gon Jinn."

Yoda motioned to his head and to his heart.

Jinn questioningly cocked his head to the side.

"I am still not sure what you mean Master Yoda."

"Within your head improved your Jedi priorities have you? Your heart mended enough it is to accept your apprentice as that, "yours". Bond with him you certainly did not or able to trek him more easily we could."

"Master Yoda I thought I told you that I have been considering giving Obi-Wan to another master totrain. I search for him only out of responsibility I have for his welfare and not out of some link in my mind or heart."

"Humph… your good looks when cleaned up will not get you far with a mind so twisted in thoughts of your apprentice it is."

"I would rather get to things at hand that matter like finding Xanatos. I wish he had not complicated matters. I can't believe he really had anything to do with Tahl's death. Tahl held a special place in Xani's heart when he was very young. It remained that way throughout, until he turned. If Gunray spoke the truth and it was Sidious' hand that killed Tahl, Xani must have also been involved."

Jinn sucked in a breath of disgust with just the thought of facing Xani again and looked into Yoda's sleepy-looking sympathetic eyes. A soft nudge to his thigh with the gimer stick showed that compassion and encouraged the big Jedi to continue.

"Xanatos supplied his own ship to take Sidious along with my kidnapped apprentice off world. There we were like idiots spying on Sidious' ship with nothing on it but droids and Red Guard."

Qui-Gon rose from his chair and shook his head angrily at the thought of how they, the Jedi had been tricked.

"We were made fools of by my former apprentice. To that I take issue and for that I will confront Xanatos De'Crion on my terms this time, not the traditional fair Jedi requisites and certainly not his conditions."

"Reason behind Xanatos' loyalty to Darth Sidious we have no knowledge of, yet. Deal with what we know we should, speculate on what might be we should not."

"Master Yoda, you might have underestimated how much Xanatos hate the Jedi and me. Because what I say about Xanatos is never supposition, it is knowledge of his corruptness. It is not some thrown together hypothesis just because of our mutual dislike for each other."

"Believe I do the temple masters there under Senator Valorum's wise direction will help learn more from Gunray once put in the position of telling truth he will be or face prison time. Know then more about your fallen apprentice's part in all this we will."

"I am just glad Viceroy Gunray went along peaceably. You put it to him that he was being escorted by Dorrie and Bruck for an Inquisition. Boy is he gullible!"

Yoda chuckled a little and rolled his eyes.

"Little does he know inquisition could wind up being his trial for murder of Jedi Master Tahl if careful with his words he is not?"

Mace came up just then.

"Well, I see we have our old Qui-Gon back."

Yoda looked first to one Jedi master then to the other.

"Old in appearance we have him back Mace Windu old in common sense we still have to find that Qui-Gon I fear."

XOXOXO

Xanatos entered his exercise room, the one in his home on Telos as quietly as possible with the aid of the force to silence the sound when he closed the doors.

He didn't justshield from Kenobi, he literally cloaked himself; a new technique used by him, one he felt more thoroughly hid his force signature than the Jedi used to hide their presence around other force sensitives. He was aware of Sidious' new medical injection to the Kenobi boy. It was concocted by the dark master's medical droids and it kept Obi-Wan from becoming ill while without the force. Darth Sidious promised Xani that once Kenobi was on Sidious' home world in the safety of the dark lord's familiar surroundings, Obi-Wan would be given, in increments his force back. After all, he had no need of a child not gifted with the force.

Obi-Wan took the blindfold from his eyes with the sound of one loan person clapping. The dull thud the two hands created by being slapped together sounded hollow in the near empty training room, one so similar to the training salle on at the Jedi temple it was eerily canny.

The teen Jedi squinted to adjust to the waviness to his vision the tight binding around his eyes produced. There walking toward him was his master's former apprentice, the dark fallen one, Xanatos De'Crion. He noticed instantly the change in Xani's appearance.

The soft black cotton tunic and matching leggings that laced loosely down the sides of Xanatos' legs had small triangular holes left to reveal skin and was a soft contrast of what the Telosian wore during their first meeting.

The first time Obi-Wan met the man he wore the same color but in leather and looked rather rough in appearance, menacing, though not excessively so. Now Xani was clean shaven and his long black hair that before cascaded over his face and in his eyes was tied smoothly back with a black leather strip. All and all a very normal looking man with less scary attributes to his appearance than when they first met, Obi thought.

Kenobi deactivated his training saber given him by Darth Sidious, stopped the machine that tossed out the metal attack orbs he had been defending himself against, and waited for Xani to speak.

"If you can do all that without the aid of the force, I can't imagine your capabilities with it. I take it wasn't your prowess as a Jedi apprentice that caused you and your new master to fail to form a bond?"

Obi-Wan gazed at the fallen Jedi apprentice before him. He'd heard much about this Xanatos De'Crion, thought he would hate him for leaving the Jedi, however, since becoming captor to Sidious, he found himself drawn to Master Jinn's old apprentice. So much so he felt a relief when the blindfold came off and he saw who did the applauding.

"No, I don't suppose it was my capabilities, though I can't say that with any certainty. Jinn, rephrase that, Master Jinn never really had time to see what I was capable of as a Jedi padawan or as a person."

Xani raised his eyebrow over the syrupy sarcasm that dripped through the meaning of what Obi-Wan said. He at first wanted to say something, thought better of it, and let Obi-Wan continue. The human frailty he saw in Obi-Wan made Xani feel sorry for him, almost made him reach out to offer sympathy to the young man, almost!

"The boy doesn't need my smart remarks to make matters worse and I refuse to coddle the fear in him. That won't help him either. He seems to suffer from lack of self-confidence, induced no doubt by our shared master. Jinn always had a way of belittling you with just a look or an exasperated moan or sigh."

Xani crossed his arms over his broad chest and let Kenobi continue. He hoped to glean some information as to why Jinn and Kenobi had yet to form even the minuscule beginning of a bond. He knew that because he could not feel Jinn's signature in Obi-Wan's mind when he used the force to easethe teen'smisery.

"He only took me as his apprentice because of some death promise to my master. Qui-Gon possibly thought he was doing the right thing when he vowed to train me as Master Tahl lay dying in his arms. The only thing is, I think he forgot how much he disliked me even though we had never been formally introduced."

Xani walked over and tossed Obi-Wan a towel to dry the dripping sweat from his face.

Obi-Wan tensed with the growing closeness of the dark Jedi as if he changed his mind about the conversation that had just delved into.

"Thanks… I… mean thanks for the towel."

He stumbled over his words. Obi-Wan found himself extremely nervous, to the point of intense anxiousness for a moment just being in such close proximity to Xani.

"I… better..ugh… go.. You know go… shower if those droids allow me."

Obi fumbled with the towel, dropped it, and then to make matters worse let the training saber clang loudly to the floor. Xani reached down picked up the saber and nonchalantly handed it to Kenobi. He made sure not to smile at that point because he feared Obi-Wan would think he found humor in the teen's momentary awkwardness.

"Oh they'll let you go in the back where the shower stalls are. You can't get out of here without unlocking those double doors."

Xani nodded to the double steel doors he had just entered and relocked.

"The shower you can get to through that little hall to the left. However, I thought maybe to speak with you for a moment before you went off to freshen up."

There were no living guards around them, but several well trained heavy duty battle droids stood with their blasters leveled at the Jedi padawan, Kenobi.

"I don't see how we have that much to talk about Mr. De'Crion. I am your captor not your friend."

"WOW! Wait a minute here. Me… I had nothing to do with your kidnapping. That was all the doing of Sidious and his two cronies, Fett and Syfo Dyas."

" Maybe you are telling th truth. I am not sure if you are part of their plan to hold me captive. I was knocked out remember? But you have done nothing to aid me in getting released. How should I take that?"

"Oh and what do you think I should have done or could do now? Maybe I could take on all these droids around you only to be downed by Sidious' saber or a lightning bolt from his fingers. Should I have stayed and had Jinn blame me for everything up and including Tahl's death. I know well how much he cared for her. I too saw good in that woman."

Xani's gaze focused on Obi-Wan, but his mind lapsed into the past; memories of Tahl and his former master Qui-Gon Jinn filled his head. It was only a moment's reminiscing before his attention was drawn back to the boy in front of him.

"Well you don't have to worry about him blaming you for my master's death. Master Jinn has assigned most of the blame to me already. I suspect that is why we can't form a bond. No matter, I may never get away from Sidious. My destiny doomed to stop here and maybe for the best."

Obi-Wan turned to go toward the showers, then stepped back to within whispering range of Xanatos.

"Tell me something. Why am I here? Why does Darth Sidious want me? He sent me in here to train, said I had to be up to par to start my "real" training… What training? Wouldn't happen to know anything about that would you Mr. De'Crion?"

"Please! Though as you say we may not be friends, we do have a lot in common. Xani or Xanatos will be fine. I am not that much of your senior that you need tack a "Mr." in front of my name all the time."

Xani smiled during his remark to Obi-Wan, and was pleasantly surprised to see the smile actually returned.

He didn't dare tell Jinn's apprentice the ridiculous idea of Sidious' that Kenobi was the Chosen One. He also didn't want to alarm the boy by spilling everything about the dark lord's plan to make Obi-Wan his new apprentice once trained in the ways of the dark side, of course.

T.B.C

ewen