The Jedi Temple Murders
by analise and Kirby CrowPart 11
Obi-Wan's boots scrabbled and kicked on the floor, striving for purchase as he was dragged like a rag doll down the hallway, a brutal hand cutting off both his screams and his air, past the dead guard and into the adjoining bathroom. His knees banged against the tub and warm water suddenly splashed over the rim and down his legs. Elspeth's bath.
"Did you really think you would escape me? You, who are more to blame than all the others? *I saved you for last.*"
Obi-Wan noted with dulled astonishment that Master Be'el's voice sounded almost exactly the same. Still the slow, measured tempo, still the rough-edged pronunciation. Only his words themselves contained the madness that had infected his soul.
"Filthy little whore. Just like them all. Just like him. No wonder he wanted you." The words were low and cloaked with hate, even through the almost conversational tone. And Obi-Wan could feel It. Feel the cold touch of a presence he had fought to forget, the icy fingers of the thing that had killed Geen. Now fully embraced by the master hunched over him.
He barely had time to think about it before steel fingers tangled in his hair and shoved him down. Warm liquid closed over his face and he gained sudden strength from the death-terror, for a moment fighting free of the water, screaming, his hands gripping the lip of the tub and attempting to brace against the onslaught, back straining against the terrible strength of the Veddian.
But one slight human Padawan was no match for a Veddian Jedi Master.
A fist hammered down, smashing his hand against the enameled metal lip of the tub, breaking his hold. His head slipped under again, silencing his cries. Obi-Wan clamped his lips shut and grimly began to fight for his life. He reached out for the Force, only to touch an unfamiliar damping field that rendered his Force-sense useless. A Master's trick, never meant to be used against their own, now a deadly weapon.
He tapped into his inner bond with Qui-Gon and found that avenue blocked as well. His attempts to appeal to the Veddian telepathically were also rebuffed. That left only sheer physical strength and wile, and he was fast running out of both.
Obi-Wan kicked wildly, only to have Be'el simply move out of the way of his flailing legs, never loosening his hold on his head. His lungs were shrieking for oxygen, small blood vessels beginning to burst behind his eyes, when he felt his mouth open against his will and intelligence and the first reflexive inhalation of water plunged his mind into a gray nothingness.
He floated in it for a moment, noticing with indifference that he had relinquished his deathgrip on the tub rim and was allowing Be'el to simply hold him down in the water.
Drifting in warmth, the view of the Veddian's face now wavering and blurred through the canvas of the water between them, an odd look of ecstatic, slow-motion triumph on the textured face.
Darkness flickered and buzzed at his periphery before lazily closing inwards, his vision receding to a pinprick. And it felt so soft. So calm. He couldn't hear the sounds of the water splashing on the floor or the calm grunting of the Veddian's breath.
He could no longer feel the burning hatred of It, and for that he was happy.
Funny. Death didn't feel like any of his instructors told him it might. Right now, it felt just like Qui-Gon's arms around him. Except it wasn't Qui-Gon, it was...
Obi-Wan opened his eyes in a sunlit garden. Small wings seemed to flitter in front of his eyes, opalescent light filtering through gossamer wings of dazzling blue before they parted and revealed a smiling familiar face.
"Geen? "
His first reaction was joy at seeing this beloved friend again, but almost immediately something shaming crept up his spine, settling in his brain. An irrational thing. A hissing voice that told him that this was the one who had hurt him, forced him. This was the one who hadn't been strong enough to keep from raping him. He knew that Geen had been influenced. He had seen it with his own eyes, the transformation of those sweet features to the hard countenance of a monster.
But there was a part of him that couldn't keep from thinking that if his friend had *really* wanted to fight the Dark Energy, he could have. It was unfair and nothing that his own sense of right could ever listen to, but it was there. In his gut. Geen extended a hand to him, and he recoiled involuntarily, suddenly recalling with crystal clarity the flinty light in those beautiful eyes, and the way those hands had seemed like iron claws, turning him onto his belly, fingers digging into his shoulders as his body was violated...
"It wasn't me, Obi," Geen said softly, jolting him out of the terrible memory.
"Not the real me. You know that I would never have hurt you. Not you..." Pleading now.
That voice. He had always loved Geen's voice. Just the slightest hint of his Alderaanian accent, not light, not deep, but rich. Like chocolate. His eyes were stinging with tears he refused to shed. Geen's voice was fractured with pain.
How could you hurt the feelings of the dead?
Ever since that terrible, terrible day he had gone over in his mind what he would say to his friend if he'd had the opportunity. It was an exercise in closure that he had engineered to try and bleed some of the pain and the betrayal from his soul. It had never worked. And now, here he was, with the chance he never thought that he would have. Geen was before him, as beautiful as he had ever been. And the light in those emerald eyes was blinding him with the agony of deep regret.
He forced himself not to retreat any further, but he couldn't prevent himself from flinching when Geen finally touched his shoulder. His friend's eyes were full of tears. Obi-Wan forced himself to remember every other moment that had led up to the cave, forced himself to recall that this youth had been his best friend for a reason. And that, if he could have, he would have loved him with everything that he had.
"I would never have hurt you..." Geen repeated again, pulling closer now, laying his head on Obi-Wan's shoulder oh-so-gently.
He smelled of sweet-spice and apples, the shampoo that he had used. The scent rocked his senses and he swallowed past the rock in his throat, letting his own arms close around his friend. They stood there, unmoving, in that ethereal place surrounded by a garden that would always symbolize the epitome of happiness for him. A love that he had been lucky enough to have fulfilled. A love Geen had never gotten the chance to have returned.
After a long moment, Geen pulled back and looked at his friend, one hand coming up to gently trace Obi-Wan's lower lip."You do have to go back. You know that, don't you?"
He did. He could feel it even now, the pull of things unfinished. "The dark energy..." Obi-Wan faltered. "Is it in Master Be'el, too?"
Geen's eyes narrowed with an emotion that Obi-Wan couldn't put his finger on. It made him feel slightly queasy for some distant, unknowable reason.
"Not any more. He *is* the dark now. He has embraced it, and now it will never let him go. You're going to have to kill him, Obi-Wan."
*Kill Be'el?* Obi-Wan puzzled silently. * But I'm dead...* His own body felt strange and unresponsive, as if he were wearing too many heavy clothes, and when he looked down at his hands there was an odd transparency to his flesh. But he could sense that he was not really a part of the place they stood in. That the butterflies were not quite there, that the garden was more of a dream, a ghost of sensations. It was not for him.
A puff of exasperated laughter. "You're not dead, silly."
The hands that framed his face gently were the same that he remembered. The same wicked smile, the teasing green eyes. The mouth soft upon his in a kiss of ineffable tenderness.
When it was over it was Obi-Wan's turn to simply lay his head on his friend's shoulder. He hugged him tightly. "Oh, Geen. I'm so sorry I couldn't love you."
"Ssshhh," A ghost hand played across his hair. "Don't worry about that now. As long as you know...that you know that I'm so sorry. If there was one person that I had never wanted to cause pain, it was you. I don't ever expect you to forgive me, but I hope that someday you will remember me without hatred. "
He didn't know...he didn't know if he could. And he knew that Geen knew it too. The sadness in those eyes told him that. Obi-Wan wasn't sure he could speak through the painful lump in his throat.
"I wish that..." Geen faltered, looking down at their feet as his voice dropped to a whisper, "I only wish that I could have made love to you once. The way I always wanted to. The way it should have been."
He looked up again and the pain written in his face nearly crushed Obi Wan's heart. His grip tightened around his friends shoulders and he couldn't fight back the sob that had been threatening.
"I-I wish that, too," he finally managed.They stared at each other for a long moment, paths untaken stretching between them. The agony of thwarted joy, the tragedy of everything that had happened. The brutally unfair fact that Geen had been denied everything that Obi-Wan had been given, and that all he wanted now was the hope that his friend might not remember him with hatred. The tears would not stop, and the two friends clung to each other for an unknowing span of time, Geen paradoxically trying to comfort Obi-Wan.
When the sobs finally stopped, and Obi-Wan looked back up into Geen's face, his friend smiled sadly and kissed his forehead.
"You have to go back now," Geen whispered reluctantly. "You have a much greater destiny to fulfill."
Obi-Wan frowned. "Stopping Master Be'el is my destiny?" Just a trace of his inherent sarcasm glimmered through in the tilt of his lips.
"Oh, much more than that, Obi. Trust me, you have to go back. Back to life. You have a long road yet to walk. We both know mine is done."
"I do miss you," he finally said, almost fiercely, taking another deep breath of clean apples and spice. And it was the truth. He missed his friend so much it hurt.
"I know. I miss you, too."
The sounds of water lapping against the walls of a ceramic tub were getting louder, overwhelming the happy hum of insects and birds in the garden. The vines and the gently swaying treetops were darkening, blurring, taking on the aspect of dark gold wall-paint and dim light fixtures mounted at intervals.
He felt lips kissing his cheek once more, and then the world tipped fully upside down and the blazing fire was back in his lungs. He was under water, Be'el's hands on his shoulders, pinning him down. Killing him.
He knew a moment of despair. Be'el was so strong, his grip so powerful. An image came to his mind's eye. Qui-Gon, smiling at him in the garden as he put his clothes to rights after a morning of lovemaking.
He would fight for that. He would do anything to have that again.
Obi-Wan twisted in the bath, the warm, soapy water aiding him, his flesh sliding under Be'el's hands. For one instant the Veddian's grip loosened, and Obi-Wan's head was out of the water. He sucked air into his lungs desperately, a great whooping gasp, and it was enough to lend renewed strength to his muscles.
But Be'el was back on him in a flash. Obi-Wan felt his limbs giving way under that iron grip, flesh bruising, letting go...
In that moment, he heard the embittered and wrathful call through the Force; "Master?"
Geen's voice. Obi-Wan had just heard it, but there was no confusion on the Veddian's face either. He knew the sound of his apprentice's voice.
Be'el started in profound shock, his head whipping around to find the source of the sound. He released the helpless Padawan in the water, his jaw dropping in horror as he searched with suddenly frantic eyes.
Obi-Wan seized the opportunity. He drew his knees to his chest under the water, then planted the soles of his boots firmly on Be'el's barrel chest and kicked with every ounce of strength he possessed.
Be'el went flying back and slammed into the wall.
Obi-Wan scrambled, sputtering, from the tub, catapulting his body up in a fighting stance. Even with the distraction Geen had given him, the Veddian still had him in the force-damping field. He could not touch the Force at all. But he still knew how to use his body.
Be'el recovered almost instantly as soon as he saw that there was nothing in the bathroom with them, and he drew his lips back in a vicious snarl, his teeth glowing white against the dark nut-brown of his face, green eyes blazing, recalling to the young Padawan that he was facing a full Jedi Master. Obi-Wan quailed inwardly but held his ground, hands balled into fists, desperately trying to recollect everything he knew of Veddian physiology. He was so shaken by the attack that nothing, no strategy or technique or physical weakness, was coming to mind. He had never faced an enemy this powerful before.
And Master Be'el meant to kill him.
Quicker than the human eye could follow, the big Jedi lunged at Obi Wan again, grabbing him by the fabric of his dripping wet tunic and slamming him against the wall so hard the world spun briefly on its axis. Again he was driven against the plaster, the back of his head connecting with the unforgiving wall, sending starbursts of light blossoming behind his eyes.
Bigger opponents...there were always weaknesses, he heard a distant lecturing voice. *Fight, damn you!* he growled to himself through the pain, bringing his numbed arms up almost automatically, forming fists with his thumbs out and driving them into the Veddian's green eyes.
Be'el jerked back with a howl of pain, dropping Obi-Wan once more, and this time, the youth charged the Master, angling the point of his shoulder into the broad torso, trying to knock the wind out of Be'el. Large hands caught up at him again, as easily as if he were a rag doll in the grasp of a child. He was flung across the room, smashing into a small shelving unit, certain that the crunch he heard was one of his ribs.
Gasping with pain, he looked up from where he lay crumpled against the wall, seeing Be'el stalking towards him, one eye tightly closed and leaking a brown, sap-like fluid. The Veddian was not slowed up a bit by his new injury, and Obi-Wan read death in the functioning eye. Clutching at his side, trying to draw a breath into his cramping, tight lungs, he tried to think how to defend himself. There was nothing he was going to be able to do. Be'el was through playing around.
Every instinct he had screamed the wrongness of the moment to him. He was Jedi! Jedi did not fight each other, not like this. And yet Be'el had killed many Jedi already. Had murdered Sandor and Bacco and Elspeth and ---
"Geen!" he shouted in anguish, eyes widening as the shimmering blue form of his friend appeared from out of nowhere behind Be'el just before the big alien was upon him, jerking teh Veddian to a stunned halt.
Geen's blue-limned hands came down on his former master's shoulders. "Hullo, Master," said the ghost of the dead boy. "Miss me? I'll just bet you do."
Be'el shrieked and leaped away from Geen as Obi-Wan struggled to rise to his feet, clasping his side tightly as bolts of pain shot through him.
Geen advanced on the suddenly retreating Veddian, his walk slow and suggestive. "It's *what* you miss that bothers me. My accomplishments? Pride in my grades? No...that's not it, is it? What you wanted - what you still want - is what I never gave you permission to take."
"Away!" Be'el screamed, waving his arms as if he could banish the spirit by motion.
"From you?" Geen asked in contempt. "Gladly." He turned away and vanished as if he had never been.
As soon as he was gone, Be'el's hands were clenching in fury. "Damned little whore. I'll show you to-- "
But Geen's brief appearance had been enough. Be'el's shock had dropped his concentration on the field surrounding his prey, and the Force was once more flowing under the damaged Padawan's fingertips. Obi-Wan, as he had been trained, took immediate advantage of both.
He would not use the Force to help him, not yet. It was too soon and Be'el would simply remember to raise the shield again. Instead he stepped up and struck Be'el a glancing blow to the chin with his fist. The Veddian only smiled, turning to him, his face a leer of twisted insanity and brutality.
"You want to play rough? Is that what you like?"
Geen's own words, from the cave. They sent a shiver of pure ice straight through the youth as his brain struggled to understand why it was important that Geen had uttered them too. Obi-Wan steeled himself and hit the stocky master again, pounding his mid-section, scoring a punch to his face. Still pretending to have no contact with the Force. Lulling the big Veddian into a false sense of superiority.
The Jedi Master caught his wrists in both of his broad hands and laughed, thrusting his face close to Obi-Wan's. "He wanted me, you know. He did. He wanted everyone. He was always a little slut, even when I first bedded him at fourteen. What did it matter if I took him? Another master would have if I did not."
Obi-Wan was rocked by the meaning of his words, and for a moment he forgot entirely to fight back. "You..." his mouth worked. "Your own Padawan?" he whispered in disbelief. "Against his will." Such a thing was almost unheard of in the Temple. Consenting relationships between adults were one thing. To take one so young, even willing, was bad enough. But rape...
Be'el laughed.
No wonder the dark energy had been able to influence Geen so easily. The corruption of spirit, placed there by the one person he was supposed to be able to trust, had already begun. He had harbored such resentment and even hatred of Geen for so long now. Such a waste. If he had only known...
That last niggling doubt, that last questioned answered, that last piece of the puzzle falling flawlessly into place. Understanding swept through him, and he drew strength from the finality of it, felt the suppressed pain and betrayal burst inside him like a noxious boil and drain away. He cast it aside.
"Geen, I'm so sorry," he whispered.
The Jedi Master sensed the peace and focus the resolution gave the young Padawan, strengthening him, and he screamed his rage, even as Obi-Wan called up the full strength of the Force and slammed the heel of his palm into the dark face, kicking his feet out from under him. Be'el went down with a crash that shook the fixtures.
"No more," Obi-Wan said through his teeth, grabbing the Veddian's head and slamming it against the unyielding lip of the tub. He would not, even in this moment of horror and rage and disgust, give in to his anger. He would not win only to fail in the end.
"Never." He aimed a kick at his gut.
"Hurt." He hammered his fist on the hand clutching the rim, feeling the bones give.
"Anyone again." Be'el was stunned, not only by the blows, but by the intensity of the force behind them. Weeping raggedly, Obi-Wan seized the thick brown throat in his hands and pulled the Master up, then slammed his head under the water, holding him there for the eternity it took until those powerful legs stopped kicking and bubbles no longer rose from beneath the surface.
His arms ached with the strain of keeping the strong Jedi underwater, and he was was still unaware that he wept as he let all the grief and rage he felt over what this creature had done to Geen, to him...and to the others simply spill out into the Force. Cleansing him. The pain was still there, but it was a natural thing. Clean in its own way.
Obi-Wan held the Veddian's head under for at least a full minute after he was dead, his shoulder still hitching with sobs, then slowly released him, allowing his broad body to slip out of the bathtub and onto the floor. Water streamed from the open mouth, Be'el's waterlogged eyes open and soulless as green glass.
And then...
...and then Obi-Wan began to tremble violently, for even as he watched, the Veddian's skin, pebbled and rough as tree bark, began to move like snakes writhing beneath the dermis.
The dark force energy began fleeing from Be'el corpse like rats from a sinking ship. The stout Veddian literally withered as the energy bled out of his very pores, streaming from his skin like mist and pooling about Obi-Wan's ankles.
Obi-Wan backed away in horror, his breath freezing in his throat at the macabre sight. Yet, after only a few steps, he found he could not move at all.
Darkness. It coiled around him like a heated serpent, seeking... seeking.
"No!" Obi-Wan screamed. He flung himself back against the wall and felt the energy rising up to his waist, reaching for him, pulling him down to his knees, invading and opening him from within.
"I have nothing you can take!" he shouted wildly, struggling against the thing seeking to gain a foothold on his soul.
And indeed, there was no darkness in the young man to exploit. There was, however, a great deal of pain to feed off of.
"No, no..." Obi-Wan sobbed as the black energy plucked at the strings of his psyche, extracting, drawing forth his adolescent fantasies of Qui-Gon, marring them with malevolent hands, tearing them out of shape until they were something ugly and sick.
"It's not that way!" he shouted to the ceiling, eyes closed, his hands tearing at his hair, his face. "It was never that way!"
*But it was...it is...* the dark insisted. So seductive, so beguiling. *Look....*
His eyes were closed but the vision was inside his eyelids, inside his brain. Qui-Gon, touching him in the garden, but the face was not his master's, not the beloved blue eyes or the full mouth that smiled far too infrequently. The cherished smile turned to a leer of pure lust as the gentle hands became demanding and cruel, tearing his clothes, inflicting pain rather than giving pleasure, taking without thought or love...
*Stop!* Obi-Wan held his breath and forced his mind back to the truth, to the reality of Qui-Gon's love for him. He held on to that as an anchor of his being, and felt the resulting malice of the dark thing that stood outside of his soul and hammered for entrance. He knew a moment of pure terror when he realized the thing's new intent.
If It could not have him, It would destroy him.
*Qui-Gon!* he sent silently, a resounding cry of inestimable loss. Just when he had found the greatest love he had ever known - was ever going to know - he was going to lose it all. Just like that.
*Master...My master, I love you...love you so much.* Obi-Wan reached with all his being for the bond that been there since he had become Padawan, caressed along the edges of that fusion, embraced Qui-Gon with the tendrils of his consciousness and tried desperately to let him know, in one final, supreme moment of life, how he was cherished.
And then he had to let go of him. A black wall was descending between them, a dark barrier that seized their bond and began to slowly crush it to death.
Mace and Qui-Gon burst into the room as the dark energy ripped soundlessly through Obi-Wan's limp body and then fled him. The apprentice fell back onto the wet floor, eyes rolled back in his head, as a crimson cloud gathered above their heads.
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