Disclaimer: Not ours.

Author's Note: So, a pretty quick update, comparatively, which is still not good. This was kind of our graduation present to ourselves. In other news, Jedi Council: BTS turned five last Sunday! Woo! If I were really cool, this would have been posted then. But, real life, you know...Sometimes it interferes. Speaking of which, because we update so infrequently these days, we don't always feel very connected to you, the readers. So, read this chapter. If you enjoyed it, mosey over and drop us a line. If you didn't enjoy it, drop us a line anyway. Tell us why. Maybe we can make it more enjoyable for you in coming chapters. Hopefully you'll see us more this summer. But between mine and Puff's work schedules and my playing noblewoman at a local renaissance faire, it probably won't mean any chapters for a while yet.

Also? I tried to edit this, but I (and the computer) probably missed a lot. So, if you see any glaring typos, let me know.

Part 17

Continued…woo…

(This is the first chapter of Jedi Council to resurrect RAITMOTS which stands for Random Announcement In The Middle Of The Story. Okay?)

So, Yareal and Shaak wanted to make their newlywed status as believable as possible. No…before you think…out of the gutter…NO!

"Do you feel like we're being watched?" Shaak wanted to know.

"Yeah, I kinda do." Yareal looked around at the houses around their new 17-bedroom, 68-bathroom, 5-kitchen, 32-dining room, 535-laundry room, 2-car garage mansion. In every surrounding house, he saw people in the windows watching them suspiciously. This is one of those neighborhoods where no one ever talks to each other but they will totally go out of their way to spy on each other so they can gossip. Okay?

"Yikes." Shaak said, "They're spying on us. That's awful and offensive."

"Um…Shaak…we're spying on them." Yareal reminded her.

"Well I feel like I'm back at the pet store cleaning fish tanks like I did to pay for college. And all of those big eyes are staring mindlessly at me…wanting my soul. I hate being watched! Especially by goldfish!" Shaak fell to the ground seizing.

"Fortunately Shaak, none of the neighbors are goldfish…but I think I did see some Calamarians. Kinda fishy looking. But they could tell ya if anything is a trap." Yareal reassured Shaak.

"Big…eyes…staring…" Shaak continued to seize.

"Do you want me to carry you over the threshold? I feel kind of obligated because these people are watching me." Yareal said.

Shaak immediately stopped seizing and jumped up and down, "Yeah! Carry me!"

She pounced on Yareal and completely knocked him to the ground.

"Carry me!" She yelled, "Or I could carry you!"

"No, I'll carry you. I'm the man in this relationship. I wear the pants in this house." Yareal said.

"You're totally not wearing pants. You always wear a skirt, robe, dress thingy. Manskirt. You don't wear pants." Shaak pointed out. (Seriously, Google Yareal Poof, he totally wears a dress.)

"Well you don't wear pants either." Yareal said, pointing to Shaak's brown skirt.

"Well who's going to carry us defenseless little non-pants-wearers over the threshold?" Shaak fretted.

"Well, anatomically, I am still…"

"SHUT UP! OMG! NOOO! NEVER OPEN YOUR MOUTH AGAIN!" Shaak screamed and started seizing again.

Wow, if the spying neighbors aren't suspicious of these two by now, God help them. Without consulting her any further, Yareal grabbed Shaak, slung over his shoulder like a sack-a-taters and marched into the 17-bedroom, 68-bathroom, 5-kitchen, 32-dining room, 535-laundry room, 2-car garage mansion. He slammed the door and from all of the windows the neighbors sighed disappointedly as the show ended. They quickly grabbed their phones and started texting everyone they knew about the suspicious new long-necked and red-horned neighbors.

"Okay, we're in the house. Now what?" Shaak wanted to know, "What do married couples usually do when they first get in their new house?"

"I'm not going to answer that because I don't want you to seize anymore. So we are going to make our board of suspects." Yareal announced.

"YAY! Can we make it pink?" Shaak asked.

"No, it's a white board and we're going to write all of our suspects and their motives on it." Yareal told her.

"Can I at least give it a pretty border? Maybe with some hibicuses? Or little bumblebees?" Shaak questioned.

Yareal tried to smack himself in the forehead but his neck is four feet long and his arms are only three feet long so he can't quite reach his head. It's a shame really. Whenever his nose itches at the temple, Mace has to get a stepstool out of the closest, stand on it and scratch Yareal's nose for him. Mace wasn't quite sure how he became the designated Poof-nose-scratcher, but he wasn't too happy about it. What were we talking about again?

Yareal wrote "Prudence and Jameson Worthington" on the suspect board.

"What would their motive be?" He asked.

"She's a snotty woman who was probably sleeping with the Prince to get information on something and then sell it off to some bad guy who was gonna destroy the galaxy but then the Prince's wife found out about it and shot Prudence in the head and while Prudence was bleeding to death she whips out a samurai sword, slices off the Prince's head, he dies, Prudence survives but is now in a permanent vegetative state, the wife gets the insurance money, moves to Cancun, marries a sexy Phillipino guy, and it turns out that she and Prudence were in cahoots to kill the Prince the whole time." Shaak said.

"To quote someone short and green: WHAT?" Yareal demanded, "That makes no sense! For someone in a vegetative state, Prudence was walking and talking pretty good earlier!"

"That's where Jameson comes in! He's a skilled droid-builder and he reanimated her lifeless vegetable body! Turns out he's the bad guy she was going to sell information to so he could destroy the galaxy. Now if he can ever get her out of her permanent vegetative state, she can give him the information he needs and he can destroy the galaxy!" Shaak explained.

Yareal rolled, "You know it was long journey here. Maybe you just need some sleep."

"What we're not going to consummate our marriage?" Shaak said in a flirtatious tone.

"Yeah, you need sleep real bad." Yareal found the nearest bedroom, threw Shaak in it and locked the door. Shaak fell onto the bed and instantly fell asleep face-down in the pillow. Hopefully she won't suffocate.

Meanwhile, in the darkness of the Xorex night, a shadowy figure ran up to the Poofs' front door and slid an envelope under it and then ran off almost getting run over by a Ford Pinto as he crossed the street.

The next day, Shaak woke up and was feeling more normal and a little bit oxygen-deprived. She fell off the bed and realized she was locked in the room. Yareal had claimed a 480 square-foot bedroom with an inground, kangaroo-shaped swimming pool, and a 70 square-foot kashmire-blend mattress with 1087352570 thread-count sheets. He was still sleeping like a dead cow. The room Shaak had been thrown in was 10-feet by 7-feet with a straw mattress on top of two cardboard boxes with burlap sheets and a really creepy picture of Steve Buscemi in an orange Speedo on the ceiling. (Good God, who did the previous owner intend to sleep in this room?)

"Poof!" Shaak pounded on the locked door, "You let me out of here right now or you will no longer be able to rely on anatomy to prove you are the man in this relationship! Get my drift?" Then she looked at the ceiling, "! Dear God!" She wanted to seize again but was too scared, "Must…get…out…of…room…NOOOWWW!"

She ran around in circles then decided to use her head. And by that we mean she bent over, scraped her right foot on ground twice like a bull, and rammed the door with her horns. By this point, the screaming had woken up Yareal and he was standing just outside of Shaak's room. He was about to open the door and let her out when suddenly two horns burst through the door and got stuck in it. Shaak is now bent over in the creepy room with her horns stuck through the door. But on the bright side, she is face down staring at the floor and cannot look up and Steve.

(RAITMOTS: eating yourself is not cannibalism it is considered autophagia.)

"Shaak? Are you okay?" Yareal asked.

"My horns are stuck in the door, I have a rash from sleeping on a burlap mattress, and currently a scantly-clad Steve Buscemi is checking out my butt so I am about as far away from okay as one can possibly be." Shaak said, "Now open the door slowly and HELP ME!"

Yareal opened the door very slowly and Shaak stepped forward, horns still stuck in the door. With one quick yank, Yareal was able to pull her horns out. Then they burned the poster. After a lovely breakfast of Poof's famous waffles, they discussed what they were going to do today.

"We need a way to meet all of the neighbors. Get them all together." Yareal said.

"Wine and cheese party!" Shaak cheered, "Booze and cheese and snotty people."

"That makes it sound like snotty people are on the menu." (RAITMOTS: that would be cannibalism) Yareal said, "But I think that would work. If we buy really expensive wine…or really cheap wine and put it in really expensive wine bottles."

"Sweet! I'm gonna go buy the booze and the cheese. You invite the snooty people." Before Yareal could protest, Shaak had skipped to the front door. She stopped in front of the door and picked something up off the floor.

"What's that?" Yareal asked.

"It's an envelope with our name on it." Shaak held up the envelope that read "Poofs".

"What's in it?" Yareal asked.

"Does it look like I've opened it yet? Do I look like I have X-ray vision?" Shaak rolled her eyes and tore open the envelope.

Inside there was a note that read: "Stop this investigation now and no one else gets hurt. Interested in a time share condo?"

"Wow. I don't know which is scarier, the threat or concept of time share." Shaak muttered.

"Who sent this?" Yareal asked.

"Are you the King of Stupid Questions today?" Shaak demanded, "There's no return address on this! Whoever they are they own a condo. Which probably doesn't narrow it down much."

"Maybe we can get DNA off of the seal where they licked it and track the person down." Yareal said.

"Yeah, send it to the Jedi Temple crime lab." Shaak said sarcastically, "No more CSI for you Poof."

(RAITMOTS: CSI comes on in half an hour, Puff's excited! So much so that she keeps typing "Puff" and not "Poof".)

"How else are we going to find out who sent this?" Yereal asked.

"Not sure, you figure that out, I want to buy booze!" Shaak jumped in the car and sped off, tires screeching all the way.

"Maybe I could get a handwriting sample from all of the guests and compare them with this note." Yareal said.

Well Shaak returned six hours later with 17 truck loads of wine and 1 truck full of cheese. Apparently she's planning on serving huge glasses of wine with really small chunks of cheese. She knows which half of the Wine and Cheese Party is the most important. Cheese is the Robin to the Wine which is Batman. It doesn't really matter. And makes a lot of people sick. (I actually like Robin…)

Anyway, around 8 that night, all of the guests showed up. Dressed all snotty. Yareal and Shaak were mingling with their guests (By the way, Qui-Gon's ship has sailed out of the Star Wars universe, into the Milky Way, and is heading for Central America. He is now within 200 miles of a sombrero. Any moment now he will be wearing one). Shaak and Yareal were chatting it up with a rich old heiress who had an obnoxious laugh and about 58 extra chins. Yareal was still wondering how he was going to get handwriting samples from everyone.

"So then I told Winston that if he piddles on the carpet any more I'm going to have to put a diaper on his little hiney." The heiress let out a shriek of laughter.

"I'm not sure if she's talking about her poodle or her husband at this point." Shaak whispered to Yareal.

"I stopped paying attention after she said "Nice to meet you"." Yareal confessed, "Any idea how to get a handwriting sample from all of these people…without blatantly asking for one (Yareal knew what Shaak's first thought would be after their encounter with Prudence yesterday)."

"Scattergories®!" Shaak whipped the game box out from under her robe.

"Okay, I do not want to know where that has been or why you have it, but I think that will work." Yareal said.

"Oh, I must say for newlyweds you two aren't very affectionate. When Winston and I first tied the knot, we couldn't keep our paws off of each other." The heiress said.

Yareal and Shaak exchanged worried looks.

"Okay, so either her husband piddles on the carpet or she married her dog or her dog is named after her husband. That's three possibilities. And I am deeply disturbed by all of them." Shaak whispered.

Yareal looked back at the heiress, "Well on our home planets couples usually keep their affections behind closed doors. We're very modest."

"Shut up and suck her face!" The heiress yelled, "I would hate to have to get Winston to bite you on your little hiney!"

…Woah…what was in that cheeseburger...

By now all of the guests were watching and waiting for the couple to kiss. Shaak stared at Yareal. She was way too short to initiate a kiss so it was up to him what their next move would be. Yareal very politely bent his neck down and gave Shaak a little peck on the cheek and hoped with all his heart that would satisfy everyone. Fortunately, a severely drunken guy a few feet away tossed his cookies all over the heiress and the kiss was immediately forgotten as she ran around the room screaming and beating the man with her 82-pound purse.

"Who's up for a game of Scattergories®?" Yareal broke the silence.

The guests all gathered around to play Scattergories®. They each had a board and answer sheet. For the first roll, the letter was B. And everyone had to think of answers for the questions on their cards that started with B (For example, the card might say "Vegetables" and the guests could write "Broccoli"). You can go to the website to figure out how the game works. After time was up, everyone compared their answers.

"Okay, number 1, did anyone think of a vegetable that started with B?" Yareal asked.

Everyone had put "broccoli" (except for a drunken Shaak who put "Bicycle"). So all of the guests cancelled each other out and nobody got any points (no matter how hard she tried, Shaak could not convince anyone that bicycles were a vegetable). The game went on, Shaak had put "Bourbon" for pretty much every other answer except for the category "Scary Things" for which she wrote "Buscemi, Steve"…that was the only point Shaak earned all night.

Anyway, the night went on, the guests left. Yareal, being the only sober person on the block drove everyone home and then had to get the wine stains off of the carpet, the furniture, and Winston (?). He looked at the Scattergories® sheets proudly. Tomorrow morning, he would compare them with the threatening note/time share offer they had found that morning.

"POOOF!" Shaak yelled from wherever she was.

"Yeah?" Yareal looked around the house until he finally found Shaak hanging upside down from the chandelier above the dining room table, "Yes Shaak. What do you want?"

"I want your ugly, I want your disease, I want your everything as long as it's free, I want your love, love, love, love, I want your love…I want your drama, the touch of your hand…" Shaak continued her drunkening singing and swinging from the chandelier as Yareal retreated to his room for the night.

The next morning Yareal found Shaak with her face in the toilet. Big surprise.

"Well, have a little too much wine did we?" Yareal asked.

"I blame the cheese." Shaak looked up at him, revealing the dark circles under her eyes.

"I'm going to go compare the handwriting samples now." Yareal said.

"I'm going to lay my head on the nice cool toilet bowl until further notice. Have a nice day." Shaak said, laying her head on the toilet seat.

"Can I get you anything?" Yareal asked, silently praying that she would not break out into Lady Gaga again.

"No thank you. All I need right now is Mr. Toilet Bowl." A very dazed Shaak said.

"Okay." Yareal went to the dining room table to compare the handwriting samples. Fortunately, since so many people were playing last night, he had made everyone put their names on their answer sheets to avoid confusion. He looked at all 52 answer sheets and guess whose writing matched the writing on the threatening note/time share offer? That's right: Jameson Worthington. Yareal immediately marched to the Worthingtons' house to interrogate him. He asked Shaak if she wanted to come but she was too busy "bowing to the Porcelain Goddess". (The toilet has changed genders…)

"Mr. Worthington, why did you give me and my wife this threatening note/time share offer?" Yareal asked.

"Meep." Jameson said.

"Ugh. Jameson. Ugh. I cannot believe you did this. I knew I should have married Winston. Ugh." Prudence stormed off.

"Okay now that you wife is gone, maybe you can talk to me." Yareal said, "What is this note about?"

After making sure his wife was out of the room, Jameson spoke in words, "Well, you see, the Prince is a good friend of mine."

"Do you know where he is?" Yareal asked.

"I can't tell you." Jameson said.

"You better, or I'll tell the police about the note you slid under my door." Yareal warned.

"Okay…" Jameson sighed, "He's on a second honeymoon with his wife. I arranged the whole thing. He told me to keep it as private as possible so the paparazzi would not find him. Please don't tell anyone I told you this. If the prince sees any photographers while he's on his trip, he'll blackmail me!"

"When will he be back?" Yareal asked, "Assuming I believe your story."

"He will be back tomorrow evening. If he's not back by then, you can arrest me." Jameson said.

"Okay. You better hope for your sake that the prince is back tomorrow evening." Yareal went back home and told Shaak what Jameson had told him.

"Yeah, the prince is on vacation and he didn't want the paparazzi to find him." Yareal explained.

"I'm your biggest fan, I'll follow you until you love me, papa-paparazzi…" Shaak thankfully passed out on the bathroom floor. Yareal rolled his eyes and draped a blanket over her. Then he went off to swim in the kangaroo pool.

Sure enough the prince returned the next day and a swarm of papa-paparazzi greeted him. Yareal told Jameson that his name was clear but since Prudence was in the room, Jameson could only respond with a "Meep". Yareal and Shaak returned to the temple that evening. They found the other council members all doped up on Mountain Dew and still trying desperately to solve various Nancy Drew mystery games.

"Haha." Yareal laughed, "I solved a real mystery in less time than it takes you fools to solve a digital one."

"I have never even met OJ Simpson." Yoda said to no one at all.

Yareal rolled his eyes and decided to go schedule a vacation of his own. Shaak spent the rest of the night passed out in her chambers. The case of the missing prince was solved and no one except for a picture of Steve Buscemi got hurt.

Meanwhile…

Oaxaca, Mexico

9:15 pm

…Two brothers were sitting on their front porch sipping margaritas and just hanging out. When suddenly a bright light fell from the sky and crashed into the ground about 50 yards away from their house. The two brothers rushed over to investigate. They found the charred remains of some sort of aircraft and a dazed, blind-folded, bound man with long hair and a beard. They stared at him for a minute.

"Those masters. I will get them some day." The man struggled out of his binds and took off the blindfold to see two confused Hispanic men staring back at him, "Who are you? Where am I?"

The two brothers talked amongst themselves for a few seconds, then grabbed Qui-Gon by the arms and dragged him back to their house. There they gave him a margarita and *drumroll* slapped a sombrero on his head! And balloons fell from the ceiling as happy Mexican music played.