Thank you to the reader who pointed out to me that I had mixed up my postings! I had accidentally skipped Chapter 5 (blame DRL!)

Chapter 11: My Friend the Backstabber

Without even opening her eyes, Padmé could tell that it was going to be a very bad day. Even blinking at the bright light seemed to cause her pain and, when she could finally keep them open, the young woman found that Sabé refused to look at her from where she sat on her own bed.

It took her friend's full assistance to get dressed, and by time they got down to the dining hall for breakfast, almost everyone was leaving to start their day. This left them both in a rotten mood, and they were consequently late to their sparring lessons.

When the two girls finally got there, everyone else was sitting on the floor cross-legged and giggling while they waited for their instructor to arrive.

"Sabé?" Padmé whispered, leaning in close to her friend. "What happened last night?"

Once again, the blond-haired woman avoided her gaze. "Do you not remember?"

Her last trip to the Healer seemed to be fresh in her mind, for Padmé worriedly bit her lip before conceding, "No."

Sabé looked mildly surprised. "As soon as we leave here, we are going to march over to Master Windu and put an end to this."

"An end to what?"

For a moment, Sabé just silently regarded her friend, but it suddenly occurred to the other woman that Padmé might truly not remember anything. "I have no idea of what you do or where you go," she admitted reluctantly, keeping her eyes fixed on Yané's back, "but I do know that you weren't in your bed last night, and that I saw him."

"Who?"

"Him."

There was an uncomfortable pause.

"Padmé, I'm worried sick about you," Sabé whispered in a somewhat frantic voice as she squeezed the brown-haired woman's hand. "You have not seen what I did…"

"Good morning, students," Cin Drallig said as he bustled towards them.

Immediately, everyone became quiet.

"I have a few announcements to make, among them being that I shall be evaluating each and every one of your's progress today."

An unanimous groan was his unappreciated response to this bit of information.

"The other is a surprise that I shall tell you about at the end of the class." With a wide gesture, he pointed at the poles waiting at the other end of the room. "Everyone to their positions!"

No sooner had they all done soon than their miserable day became worse.

Every institution has its own prima dona, but the young woman who had just entered into the sparring room was so mean and full of herself that any other snippy woman paled in comparison.

Her name was Eirtaé.

The temple had never met her kind before and had consequently been left in shock in her wake. The daughter of a wealthy senator who had not spent time to raise her properly, the young woman had been ruined by years of being incessantly spoiled.

In just the couple weeks that she'd lived at the Temple, Eirtaé had no less than five boyfriends, the current one being a quiet young Jedi she loved to push around. For the past couple days, he'd followed her around like a lost nexu, but she'd paid no attention to him.

Currently, the said woman was still standing in the doorway wearing a smug look on her face and had her hands on her hips. Eirtaé only moved when she saw the diligently practicing Padmé and, with the young Jedi in her wake, she crossed the floor with a nasty smile on her face.

Because he'd been standing with his back to them, Drallig did not see Eirtaé shove Padmé too the ground before pushing Sabé out of the way so she could spar with her boyfriend. The sparring master stared in disbelief and, despite the protestations of the other dozen young ladies, couldn't quite believe that Eirtaé would do such an unprovoked thing.

"Why does she have to do that?" Padmé moaned when she was sure that her nemesis wasn't paying attention, clutching her throbbing head as Sabé and a few of the others helped the girl stand up.

"In less than a minute, she'll have the master wrapped about her fingers," another young lady muttered darkly.

Indeed, Eirtaé had already sidled her way over to the Troll, as they liked to call their instructor, and was casually flirting with him.

"Not even a minute," Padmé murmured disgustedly. "Never mind her- I need to do well today."

Once they were all done with their warm-ups, all of the young ladies resumed their spots on the floor while Cin Drallig explained the rules to them. "This evaluation shall be done in tournament style with the winner receiving a perfect grader.

Dread settled in Padmé, and her nervousness was so apparent that her friend noticed and reassuringly squeezed her hand.

Even more nerve-racking was the fact that she was to participate in the first round. When she gulped and looked ad her spectators while in position, Padmé saw her enemy smirk. This nearly undid her and she accidentally dropped her pole down to the ground.

Drallig made a few notes of this on his datapad.

Padmé did not know how it happened, but she defeated her opponent so soundly that everyone present was stunned, including their instructor. By the end of the match, Eirtaé had stopped her snide remarks.

Thus continued the rest of the tournament.

But, things suddenly became worse. It came to the last match, and Padmé was still fighting though a little sore, but her next opponent was none other than Eirtaé. It had been one thing to fight with her best friend, something which had made her feel extremely guilty, but this just spelled trouble.

Gone was all of Padmé's hard practice- with Eirtaé's first thrust, she soundly whacked her opponent's shoulder, causing Padmé to cry out in pain. Hurt and having loosened her grip on her weapon, she lamely swung back but was instead delivered a sharp rap on her had.

"Don't let her get to you!" Sabé cried out through all the gasps.

She did not see it happened, but in one second, Eirtaé was giving Padmé a particularly sinister look and swung, but in the next, her nemesis was shrieking. Numerous tiles had dislodged themselves from the ceiling and had narrowly missed the screaming woman.

All of the young ladies started screaming and ran about while Cin Drallig tried to calm them down. "It's okay- there's nothing to scream about. It's an old ceiling, for Force's sake!"

But Padmé knew better. While everyone else had been panicking, she had unblinkingly remained transfixed in her spot, staring at the ceiling with her weapon limp at her side. "He's here," Padmé breathed.

"It's the Phantom!" a woman screamed, adding to the growing chaos.

It was a good fifteen minutes before the screaming ended.

"There is nothing up there," Cin Drallig insisted.

"Loose tiles mysteriously falling from the ceiling," Eirtaé's boyfriend said with a snicker though he did look worried, "sounds to me like we've got a ghost!"

Everyone gasped but no one screamed like Padmé had expected.

"This is ridiculous!" Drallig exclaimed. "What is it?" he snapped irritably as the brown-haired woman tapped his shoulder.

In her hands was yet another letter, but where had it come from? "I do not think this is just our imagination," she whispered.

Before he could open it, someone did cry out, but it was more out of anger for being neglected instead of fear.

"That's it!" Eirtaé shrieked. "I have had enough of this stupid Temple and everyone in it! Somebody tried to kill me, and all you can do is argue about whether there is a ghost or not! I'm leaving!"

"But you can't just leave!" Sabé said matter-of-factually.

"Yes I can, and I will!" She jabbed her finger into Drallig's chest. "I am sick of my abilities not being appreciated!" It was evident that, in addition to not being the center of attention, she was upset that Padmé had performed so well. "I am leaving- and I'm not kidding!"

Cin Drallig groaned while all of the young ladies applauded this departure.

This only infuriated Eirtaé even further. Snatching her boyfriend's arm, she stormed out of the room. "I am getting my stuff and leaving! Goodbye!"

"Do something!" the Troll pleaded with his pupils. "She was to participate in the sparring match before all of the other Jedi!" A guilty look crossed his face as he realized his error. "I had intended for the winner to display her skills on a special occasion here soon, but thanks to her, there will be no match!"

"Grovel," Padmé suggested, very much wanting to see that sight.

Meanwhile, the screaming young woman could still be heard.

"What am I going to do?"

"Pick an alternate," Sabé confessed coolly as she stood there with her arms over her chest.

"An alternate- someone able to duel a Jedi?" he echoed. "I wasn't expecting this to happen- only the best pupil was to face a Jedi of my choosing in a duel before the entire Temple." Finally, Drallig shrugged. "I guess I'm going to have to call this off."

"Padmé could do it," Sabé offered quietly.

It took her a whole minute to realize that they were talking about her, and then Padmé gaped with all of her class mates. "Sabé!" she cried out in shock. That was precisely the last thing she wanted to do…

"She has been taught by a great teacher," Sabé continued, slowly gaining the confidence Padmé was sure she had not.

Meanwhile, she refused to look into the bewildered Jedi's eyes but instead stared down at her feet.

"You've been practicing?" he asked incredulously.

"Just a little," she confessed, "but I'm not-"

But before she could continue her protestations, Sabé pushed her towards the Jedi instructor. "Well, then, let's give it a try," the Troll said. "There's no reason to be shy, Miss Padmé," he said gently upon seeing her obvious fright.

Padmé quickly glared at Sabé before lifting her pole.

She started out weak, but confidence soon overcame here. How, the woman knew not, but her hands and feet knew what to do, and the Jedi eventually stared at her in disbelief.

At last, he stopped the attack. "Where did you learn that last move?" Drallig asked, referring to the moment when she impossibly avoided his last move with some quick parrying. "That was a highly intricate that only one person I've known has mastered…"

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