Life has gotten me a bit behind on many things - the good news is I can type and therapy is going well for the almost-whole broken wrist.
Thanks to all who read...
Chapter 44. Fury Incarnate
Sith's hells!
A low snarl echoed hollowly within the bowels of the Jedi Temple and a data pad smashed into a stone wall, shattered by the force of its impact. A once Jedi stood even more shattered, fury sizzling like molten lava breaching a rotted, dead forest.
A random chance, a curious riffling through the Order's files, idle speculation – and confirmation found therein. Twisted and hideous, the truth was as convoluted as it was obvious, once one knew what to look for.
BB - had been played and betrayed.
He had become complacent over the years, secure and confident in his place. Not a confidant, never a confidant, for he held his own secrets just as the Boss did. Such was to be expected, a benevolent and sharing boss, hell no; no, he had never once mistaken him for such.
But this – this was treachery. Lies and deceit: years in the making.
He had been groomed for years whilst another had been as well, albeit for a shorter time.
Sith's hells!
Oh, it was clear now. Too clear.
He had given the boss his loyalty for no reason other than he had been the first and only one to step in and provide a new life for a cast-off reject. Adjudged unworthy of an Order than valued conformity and timidity, this reject he had been could have been a powerful Jedi Knight by now – if not for Kenobi.
Kenobi, who had caused the ruination of his life, a life then given purpose by the boss.
A successful once-reject himself, the boss had continued BB's education in the ways of the Force even as he had given him direction and a job. He had turned a powerful boy into a far more powerful man and that man into a trusted aide and right hand man. A lie and a deception, in truth, easily seen now that he had been relegated from needed to useful, from collaborator to tool.
For he knew now he was never saved by the Boss, only given purpose. Not his own purpose, either, but another's.
He was tired of being used, of being underappreciated, of being a tool to wreck another man's vengeance against those whom he believed to have wronged him. BB had been wronged as well– he had his own vengeance to seek.
And would, at its proper time.
The story hidden in the files …what a massive deception was being perpetrated by the boss. An ancient prophecy, a convenient child, an easily duped Jedi master – oh, there were ways to use this.
Well, the boss didn't know just how cunning and duplicitous BB could be, how few scruples his so-called protégé had. Oh, there'd be no thanks from the Jedi should he expose the truth but the truth had to be valuable to someone.
Or, his lips curled in a feral smile – perhaps to himself.
He'd heard plenty. The Sith were not extinct and the Sith had risen. So, too, the Chosen One. There were possibilities there – for the Sith had been dealt a blow and the Jedi a deception.
But BB did not lack for ambition and he knew there was a Sith out there minus an apprentice. A readymade job opening with a clear path to the top – say in a few years or so.
Now to get his attention before the boss caught on….say, by removing a certain Chosen One, or more satisfying, a certain Jedi who had created that job opening?
Anakin, yes, young Anakin should be the sacrifice to appease his blood lust and the means to gain the Sith's favors. The transcendent fury of madness receded as BB's rational mind began planning.
Just how many bodies made for a proper job resume?
"Young Master Skywalker?"
A jolt of elation at being so addressed brought a smile to Beebe's face, loitering in a little used cross corridor. The boy was so predictable, so easily manipulated. He craved attention and praise, craved control and above all, craved security.
His mother alone had provided that last and even that would have been uncertain. Boy or mother, either would have been sold in seconds for the right currency. The mother probably had been sold onto her back more than once: a little extra income was appreciated by most slave owners and if some brat was begat of it, well, brats grew into labor or income, too.
Or into Jinn's precious discovery, the "Chosen One."
So even before the boss stepped in to shape the boy, he had been a walking thermal detonator in development– one whose instincts tugged him to helping others and one whose life experiences taught him to help only himself.
Lessons reinforced by the boss's many absences over the years.
But the boy was young yet, still malleable and not necessarily the viper in the bosom of his enemies. By a twist of fate or Force he had been discovered by he who was to be his victim and his destiny reshaped into prophecy.
And what the boss didn't know was that his finely honed weapon was losing his edge and seeking his heart, the conflict within expressed in jealousy and possessiveness, into arrogance to hide doubt, to the outward expression of rage to hide fear.
And for the Jedi master – affection and trust was replacing the boy's wariness. It was time to startle the prongbuck into watching the hand that fed it for the betrayal. Now, now it was Beebe's turn at manipulation, for him to step into the role of puppet master.
Disruption and mayhem, distrust and mischief were both means and an end of itself.
The game – started now.
"Still Master Jinn's padawan are you?" he asked, adding a wink and a hand on the small shoulders. The boy's breath hitched and he nodded, wide-eyed. Beebe let out a carefully calculated sigh of relief. "That's good; I'd heard that some Jedi think he's changed his mind, regrets giving up Kenobi. There's rumors that he can't stop thinking about him, that that faraway look he gets in his eyes sometimes is a dead giveaway."
The shoulder under his hand tensed; fear and anger flooded the boy. So much unfettered emotion for a Jedi. He almost tut-tutted.
"No, no, Master Qui-Gon wouldn't do that! He hates him."
"Does he? Has he said so?"
The boy nodded frantically. "He doesn't speak about him; he gets a weird look on his face if anyone mentions him – oh!"
Letting that jolt of fear simmer into a slow boil, Beebe shrugged. "I don't believe it, myself, or the rumor that instead he's looking for a new apprentice." He grinned and added in a jocular tone, "I honestly don't understand some Jedi's sense of humor. Macabre, I'd say. Not quite satisfied, shopping for an improved padawan …why, your Master would never do such a thing. He would never discard one padawan for another, especially when he promised to guide that one to knighthood – well, certainly not twice, anyway. He's far too honorable a Jedi to go back on his word, right?"
The barb struck home, for the blood drained from the boy's face even as sparkles of anger honed to a vibroblade's micron-thin edge flared within sapphire eyes. Fury and fear nearly overwhelmed the boy, but to Beebe's surprise, were somehow disciplined into abeyance.
Well taught, Boss, well taught. He'll husband them until he's ready to unleash them.
"He wouldn't do that to me, I'm special," Anakin growled, drawing himself up to his full height. "He said so."
The boy believed this. Nearly, but it only took a miniscule amount of doubt to fester, and fester it would. Beebe shrugged and somehow managed to twist what nearly was a leer into the semblance of a teasing grin.
"Yes, well, Master Jinn's word means much, doesn't it?" He patted the boy on the shoulder and glided off.
He wouldn't do that to me – I'm the Chosen One. He chose me. Me!
Anakin stood in a taut ball of disciplined fury, hands clenched at his sides and angry tears trapped behind his eyelids. He did not dare let them be displayed. Tears were a weakness, tears were a sign of vulnerability, tears were an invitation to pain except when summoned to serve a purpose.
"Qui-Gon Jinn is your enemy, Anakin, as he is mine. He will pretend affection even as he plots his betrayal. Be wary. The Jedi use deceit and deception to make others weak."
No. He didn't want to believe it. Qui-Gon loved him. Loved him so much he threw away someone else he had once loved. Qui-Gon denied it and even believed it, but the shadows in his eyes spoke otherwise. The holopics of he who had come before had been flung aside, but remained when they could have been discarded. That name was never spoken, but that face troubled his master's dreams….
…and the realization hit him – that affection lingered still, unacknowledged and hidden, but there, still there.
And as long as he was there, Anakin could not reign supreme within, a place he had come to believe was his and his alone.
For love shared was love halved. Love, to a slave, was as water to a parched man – something to greedily partake of and to drink of wholeheartedly until the thirst was salved. To share was to risk not having enough.
And Anakin had learned long ago to fight for every drop and every morsel.
He needed to free Qui-Gon from that one for good and claim the master as his alone. He would be sure that he was the only one in Qui-Gon's mind and Qui-Gon the only one in his: the bond sacrosanct to just the two of them.
The same with his heart.
No more being torn in two. He could achieve his dreams – not by sacrificing Qui-Gon Jinn, but by sacrificing the one who haunted him. By choosing affection over harshness, by embracing his destiny at the side of the man who had handed it to him.
He is your enemy and I shall teach you how to destroy him.
But he was instead taught how to hate and the man he was taught to hate had only taught him how to love. Unless, of course, it were a deception, a lie, a trick.
Kenobi's fault, for carving a niche in the Jedi master's heart that had not healed. Rip that out, rip him away, and all would be well.
Qui-Gon would be his alone.
"He would take Kenobi back, if the man asked."
No, no, and no. Would he? He would not! But Beebe thinks – no! Anakin's lips thinned. He needed proof.
His first teacher had promised to make him strong, to make him powerful. He had accepted the teachings so in time he could free his mother and free the slaves, punish the wicked and sinful.
But it was Iego who paid the price and his mother who was punished.
His second teacher had set aside his student and taken Anakin away from the yolk of slavery, but he had left his mother behind to toil in servitude. Was his Jedi master any better? Were his soft words any better than the harsh hand of discipline of the first?
Both used him for their own ends.
Better to be seduced by the silken leash than coerced by the hissing whip?
He angrily wiped his lashes dry. He would play his own game now. He would choose the victims and he would choose his own path. For now, he would play along and learn what he could, for the powerful boy of nine would be even more powerful at nineteen.
Then he would make the rules.
He was destined, for he was chosen.
Yoda was the first to sense it, followed a fraction of a second later by Mace Windu. A tremble, a surge in the Force. An icy chill in the Force, a shiver of foreboding.
"What was that?" Mace asked quietly.
"Darkness." His voice was grim, his eyes already closed as he sought within the Force for the proper question and hence the key to the answer. He finally sighed and sought Mace's eyes. "Gone now it is, shrouded and hidden, but nearby it is. Or was."
"The Sith? Probing the Temple?"
Yoda hunched over his gimer stick. "Possible, it is. If that strong he is…." He raised troubled eyes and blinked.
If the Sith was that strong, Force help them all. And perhaps their greatest weapon, still a boy – and unallied as yet to their side.