Disclaimer: I wish I could take credit for creating Star Wars, but alas, I am not George Lucas, and I have no intention of getting sued.

Summary: As Qui-Gon, Anakin, and Bant protect the Republic from Darth Sidious, another Sith Lord emerges – Qui-Gon's presumably dead, former apprentice Obi-Wan Kenobi. Can the Jedi save the Republic, or is it already too late? The third story in the Jedi Trials series.

Author's Notes: Hello, my lovely readers! Once again, I am very sorry about the lateness of this chapter. My computer has been acting up lately, and I've been on the edge of going Sith and beating it to shreds with my plastic lightsaber. Fortunately, I came to my senses before that happened and decided to Force (all pun intended) it to allow me to upload this latest chapter.

Revenge and Regret

By Kekelina

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Chapter Fifteen: Past, Present, and Future

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To every sentient being, rain was associated with an emotion or sense of nostalgia – perhaps leading to the uncovering of a childhood memory of splashing around in shallow puddles against a mother's wishes or of creating elaborate mud-based delicacies to share with friends and family after a particularly ferocious attack of thunder and lightning on a blisteringly warm, humid day. To every normal sentient being, that is. To Darth Dementor, reigning Dark Lord of the Sith, rain had no meaning and created no emotion except mild annoyance. His childhood had not been filled with such trifled memories of enjoying something as simple as a passing storm. His childhood had been filled with Jedi lies. Among the Jedi, there was no such frivolity. A Jedi was attentive at all times. A Jedi did not "have fun." A Jedi did not know the meaning of the word.

Their lack of emotions will be their downfall, a voice on the wind whispered, eerily reminiscent of the late Darth Sidious. They lack the very thing that makes them sentient…that makes them alive. Fools.

"-Pleased, my Lord?"

Surfacing from his subconscious, Dementor stared at the bounty hunter's bronzed face. How many times had he cursed Jango's smug face during his torture? How many times had he shuddered when t he menacing silhouette of pain had arrived in the doorway of his dank, rotten cell? How ironic that his torturer would now possess the means he needed to seek revenge on a galaxy that had left him gypped.

He had a whole army of Jango Fett's at his command.

Ironic didn't even begin to describe it.

"Was there something you wanted, Fett," he snapped, ignoring the previous question. He had little time for petty small talk and faux concern. Such inconsequential nonsense was best left to the politicians.

"The last of the clones have been loaded into the ships," he replied coldly. "You're all set to begin your journey to Coruscant."

Dementor nodded briskly in acknowledgement, his mind still lacking the focus he needed to do its job. Nothing stopped him now from seeking the revenge he had long desired…nothing except, perhaps, his own hesitancy. At a time of action, when he needed his will the most, he found himself paralyzed, unable to leap into the unknown – a future he had dreamt about for ages.

Was it the Unifying Force beckoning him again, warning him of yet another situation that would ultimately end poorly for him? Or had the menacing Darth Dementor, simply lost his nerve? Did he fear the Jedi fools with their emotionless exteriors and ridiculous dogma? If it were true, could he admit to such a thing?

The air reverberated with the haunting cackles of hundreds of Sith Lords long dead.

Blast, he swore silently, though his outward appearance did not betray his caged anger.

Anger at the Jedi. Anger at the Force. Anger at himself.

It coursed through his veins like a raging speeder. Red waves crashed against the ocean of his mind, suffocating even the meekest sliver of green, blue, or white. The storm raged, the wind blew, and no one and nothing could stop it. To try would be suicide. It consumed everything in its path as it battered the walls of his mind, pulsing power that grew stronger with every blow. He throbbed with it; even his heart kept the same rhythm. Lord Dementor was not consumed by anger, he was anger.

Snapping 180 degrees, he strode towards the landing platform with powerful, deadly strides. He permeated the air around him with suffocating darkness; his robes, as black as the vacuum of space itself, billowed behind him.

"You're coming with me." It was not a request.

Jango pushed his way forward to block the deadly Sith, hands itching to blast him into oblivion. The air surrounding the duo swirled in a chaotic mess of testosterone and rage. If it was possible, the very hallway seemed to wither and dim under Dementor's glacial glare, which would give anyone not named Jango Fett an agonizing heart attack. "That wasn't part of our deal, Dementor."

Had he not been so angry, Dementor would've laughed. He was not afraid of Jango Fett, and his petty threats would certainly not work on him. He should feel extremely lucky that the Sith Lord didn't Force-choke him that very instant. He so longed to…

"The deal has changed."

It was nothing more than a hiss, yet it begged the bounty hunter to disagree with him, to give him any reason to hurt him. Even as they stared at one another, both challenging the other to make a move, to act on the palpable tension in the air and begin a full-scale war in the middle of the corridor, Dementor's fingers gently curled at his side, forming themselves stealthily around an imaginary tubular-shaped trachea.

However, Jango stepped aside, no longer giving Dementor a valid excuse to painfully murder the man. Perhaps once his ultimate goal had been achieved, he would repay Jango with the same kindness the bounty hunter had bestowed upon him during his captivity.

"I knew we understood one another," Dementor growled as he sidestepped Jango without a glance, a voracious sneer on his vicious face.

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Unlike most, Bant Eerin found the Temple's Med Center to be a place of solitude. Everything from the sterile white sheets to the steadily beeping monitors spoke of the healing power of the Force. Here, she lived a quiet life of service, patching up saber burns and blaster wounds, diseases and illnesses. The Force guided her skilled hands, speaking to her as it only spoke to other Jedi trained in the healing arts.

Over the course of her life, she had seen many wounded Jedi before and had assisted them as they had regained their strength and mobility. But not always. Sometimes she was forced to watch them slip into the Force, slowly succumbing to their injuries, the familiar presences draining from the room, leaving only the chilling echoes of deceased Jedi.

As a Healer and a Jedi, she was prepared for such events. But nothing and no one could've prepared Bant for this.

Anakin Skywalker lay before her, his unconscious supine figure deathly pale. Though cool to the touch, his normal fierce, resolute face shimmered with cold sweat. The only sign of life was the gentle exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide from between his two chapped, parted lips.

This was her Padawan, weak and hurting. Never had she felt so helpless.

"He's doing well, Bant," the Bothan Mind Healer on call reassured her as he entered a quick note into a datapad. She could only numbly nod in response.

She had been so sure back in their quarters that he…

A loud, shaky sigh pushed away the thought. She tried desperately to reestablish her center, to release her fear and become the levelheaded Jedi she had been back in her quarters while both Anakin and Qui-Gon had writhed in agony.

Her efforts were in vain. Her calm center eluded her.

A shaking, hesitant hand reached up to wipe the sweat off her protégé's brow. "Oh, Anakin," she whispered desperately. He was so weak, so fragile – so different from her normally energetic, confident young Padawan Learner.

"I'm so sorry I wasn't able to protect you."

The words had been spoken without so much as a thought, but in her heart, she knew them to be true. Anakin was lying in the Healer's Ward because she had failed as a Master – failed to allay the unseen evil before it touched her vibrant apprentice, before it drained the life from his very soul with image upon image of painful horrors.

She should've ran to his side sooner…had enough sense to shield him from his own vision as Qui-Gon had...done a better –

Important, the 'what-ifs' and 'should-haves' are not, Master Yoda's voice gently reprimanded, though the Jedi Master was nowhere to be seen.

"Change the past you cannot," she mumbled to herself, imitating Yoda's backward-speak as she had often done as an Initiate. "Only the present you can now determine. And in doing so, the future."

She sighed. Yoda was right; her focus had to remain in the present, for by straying to the past, she could accidentally create disaster in the future.

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Bant and Anakin were only two of the souls whose lives would soon be drastically changed forever by dark deeds that had already occurred and catastrophic choices that had yet to be made.

None, not even Yoda, could see the downward spiral the galaxy was quickly descending into, a chaotic mess of events that could only be stopped by four people, connected together by threads of friendship and betrayal:

Three Jedi and a Sith.

The fate of many rested in the hands of the warring. If they did not succeed and balance was not restored, all would be plunged into everlasting darkness.

The Force, it seemed, was not without a sense of irony.

In dejarik terminology, they were forked.

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The Other Author's Notes: Say goodbye to the galaxy you know and love, for all Hell breaks loose starting with Chapter Sixteen: Attack of the Clones. Everything's been building to this point, and I am so glad to finally write what I've been planning for years, including the inevitable duel between Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan. Cue nervous gasps.

On a side note, the second-to-last line in this chapter is a modified line from the Matrix which says "Fate, it seems, is not without a sense of irony."

'Twould be very appreciated if you hit that little button in the corner that says 'review.'

Author's Edit: 8-21-2007