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Knights of the Old Republic Episode I: Force Bond	By : hatochiisai Category: 1 through F > Criminal Minds Views: 4007 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Criminal Minds, nor do I make any financial profit off of writing this story.

Chapter List
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Knights of the Old Republic

Ahmose Inarus

Disclaimer: I do NOT own Criminal Minds, and I most certainly do NOT own Star Wars.

SLASH WARNING!!! H/R

Chapter 9

PLANET: CAROSI

LOCATION: KRAYT DRAGON CANTINA

TIME: LATE AFTERNOON

Elle and Reid walked into the Cantina and looked around.

“Remember… NO PAZAAK.” Elle told Reid, firmly.

“I KNOW!” Reid cried, looking insulted.

“The last thing we need is you getting us into trouble again.”

“Hey! Those guys on Nar Shaddaa were sore losers!” Reid whined.

“Doesn’t matter, Reid.” Elle grinned. They walked into the place, and then Elle suddenly stopped. “… No way.” Reid followed her gaze, and blinked. “… Lee?” Elle gasped, and the orange skinned Twi’Lek grinned and walked over.

“Well well… my lucky day.” Lee said. “I close a deal making a big profit, and then I run into my favorite Jedi.” He took her hand and kissed it.

“What are you doing here?” Elle asked, grinning.

“I do a lot of business on Correllia, Nar Shaddaa and Carosi. What brings YOU to Carosi?”

“Uh, we’re hunting a Baragwin who’s running a slaver operation.” Reid said.

“… Horan Arbel?” Lee asked.

“… Yeah!” Elle exclaimed. “How did you know?!”

“He’s a regular here on Carosi.” Lee said.

“Any idea where we can find him?” Reid asked.

“Yeah. The Devil’s Dome. Come on.” Lee said, and led them out of the Cantina and down the street. He had been hoping to get Elle alone, but hey… he wasn’t going to argue bagging two Jedi for the price of one… IF this worked…

He walked beside Elle, and smiled at her.

“So… You… LIKE being a Jedi?” He asked. She looked at him.

“I do.”

“… I used to train on Dantooine.” Lee sighed.

“You’re a Jedi?” Elle asked.

“No. I used to be. But I left the Order.” Lee said.

“why?” Elle asked.

“They were holding me back. There were a few techniques that I used that the Council didn’t approve of. I was tired of their stuffy, Holier Than Thou attitude. Surely you’ve been there…?”

“… I use something called a Force Scream. It is the opinion of the Council that it is a technique of the Dark Side. They do no try to hide their disapproval of me.”

“There is no Force Ability that is inherently good or bad… light or dark.” Lee snorted, shaking his head. “It’s all about how you USE them... You hate the Council. I can feel it.”

“They’re hypocrites.” Elle snorted. “I think they’ve forgotten what it’s like to be in the field. And then there are those like STRAUSS…” She made a face. “Who were never in the field to begin with.”

“Their expectations are unrealistic.” Lee said with a nod. Behind them, Reid was looking around with wide eyes as they entered the Devil’s Dome, not even hearing their conversation. “That boy with you… what does the Council think of him?”

“… He’s… powerful.” Elle said, and frowned. “His Master was training him on Dantooine. But the Council commanded him to bring him back to Coruscant for the last few years of his training… We all know why…” Elle snorted, scowling.

Lee nodded. “They know he’s powerful. They want to make sure that this power is under their control…” He told her. “They want to make sure he doesn’t get TOO powerful. That he won’t grow more powerful than they are.”

“Yes.” Elle said, nodding. “They were angry with Gideon when they saw that Reid had learned more powerful techniques… one of which they consider a Dark Side Ability.”

“Oh? What?”

“… He can use the Force Lightning.” Elle said. Lee’s eyes widened and he turned and looked back at the delicate looking young Jedi.

“… THAT’S why I left the Order.” Lee said. “They hold you back. They only let you grow as strong as they want you to, and only as long as THEY control you.”

“Right.” Elle mumbled, frowning.

“So why are you still in the Order?”

“Because I believe in the work we do.” Elle said, firmly.

“I understand. That’s why I joined a group of rogue Jedi.” Lee said with a smile. “We’re all former members of the Order who felt that the Council abused their power and control that they FEEL they have over us. We are a New Order. We do a Jedi’s work with complete freedom. Of course, the Order calls us Dark Jedi, Fallen Jedi… Sith. Because we do no answer to them. The truth is, there is no division in the Force… there is no Light Side, no Dark Side… There is the FORCE. And that’s all. It’s the PEOPLE who make it Light and Dark. And the Jedi Council has decreed that anyone Jedi trained, operating OUTSIDE of the Order, OUTSIDE of their control, is a follower of the Dark Side.” Elle stared straight ahead as they walked. “And the red Lightsaber blade does NOT mean ‘Follower of the Dark Side’. It means ‘Free of the Council’. Of course, they don’t want YOU to know that. I carry the red blade because I am FREE.”

“… I want to come with you.” She said, looking up at him. Lee smiled. He KNEW she would be easy to turn. He could feel her anger and resentment the moment he laid eyes on her. She hated the Council and their restrictions… he could FEEL that she didn’t trust them, and felt smothered by them. He KNEW it would only take a small push to turn her. She would have Fallen on her own eventually, even without his help. And the Jedi were fools if they couldn’t have seen it. But now that he had her, he wanted to use her to bring in a bonus…

“The boy… He needs to be removed from the reach of the Council. Before they manage to take hold of him.” Lee hissed, heart pounding. If this boy was truly that powerful, he knew what his Master would want. Darth Reaper would tell him, ‘the boy joins us, or the boy dies’. He was a stranger to the boy… he wouldn’t trust him. He WOULD trust his companion. Smirking, Lee leaned against Elle’s mind. She blinked.

“I’ll talk to him. What do I do?” She asked. Lee leaned over and whispered into her ear, exerting the right pressure on her mind as he did so…

Reid glanced at them and frowned when the pair had their heads together. He just sighed. So she was making a friend. Whatever. But a chill ran down his spine. He did NOT trust this… Lee. It was too much of a coincidence. They ran into him on Nar Shaddaa and he was able to send them straight to the one they were searching for. And then they met up with him there again. And now here, where once again he was guiding them to their target. It was too much of a coincidence.

They were led into a large, plush lounge.

“I’ll be back. Make yourselves comfortable.” Lee said and left the room. Reid frowned.

“I don’t like this.” Reid said, frowning.

“The décor not to your tastes?” Elle laughed.

“It’s not our surroundings… it’s Lee.” Reid told her. “I don’t trust him.”

“… He was Jedi, you know.” Elle said.

“… He Fell?”

“Fell…” Elle scoffed. “Council lies. He felt smothered by the Council. And he decided to leave the Order.”

“So he DID Fall.” Reid said.

“… I feel smothered by the Council.” Elle said, suddenly. Reid blinked and turned to face her. He looked startled. “And… I’m not sure I want to be under their thumb any longer.”

“Under their thumb!? The Council doesn’t OWN us! We are not their slaves! They keep us organized and on track! They make sure that we go where we are needed! They LEAD us!” Reid cried, now looking slightly alarmed.

“They LIE to us.” Elle snapped, her eyes dark in her anger. “They CONTROL us. Lee has shown me that they are not wise leaders, but power hungry control freaks. He left because he refused to allow them to control him… to hold him back…”

“Hold him back?!”

“And I agree with him.” Elle said. “They came down on me just because I know how to use the Force Scream. Just as they will come down on you just because you use the Force Lightning! Don’t you know why they made Gideon bring you to Coruscant?!”

“… So that I could learn to work with a team and not just my Master. So that I could start handling larger missions.”

“They made him bring you back so that they could start to establish a measure of control over you. If you were on Dantooine for your entire training, they would never have that. They want to make sure that you don’t get TOO powerful, and that the power you wield is under THEIR control.”

“Elle…”

“I’m leaving the Order.” Elle said, and Reid just stood there, stunned. “And I think you should come with me.”

“WHAT?!” Reid yelped, his voice high and squeaky in his shock. “L-Leave the Order?! Elle!”

“I won’t let them control me. I’m doing things MY way from now on, without them smothering me. And you should come too. Imagine the level of power you could achieve without the Council holding you back! We could become Sith. They’re NOT evil! Sith are Jedi who refuse to allow the Council to control them! And all our lives, the Council has told us that they Sith are evil to convince us not to join them… because then we aren’t un their control. Well I say, TO HELL WITH THEM! The Sith is freedom. And that is all I want.”

Reid stood there, eyes wide and hands outstretched, palms forward.

“Elle… this isn’t the Jedi Way!”

“The Jedi Way?!” Elle sneered. She shook her head. “We’ve been lied to. There is no Light Side. There is no Dark Side. There is only The Force. And those who are willing to use it to its full potential, and those who are afraid to.”

“Elle—“

“The Jedi are holding me back!” Elle snapped. “They’re holding YOU back.” She smiled and shook her head. “Reid… You have so much power in you… I have NEVER seen anyone do some of the things that you can do… And you’re still just a Padawan… imagine the power you could wield as a Master… You could be a Sith Lord… You could rule the Galaxy… you could bring peace!”

“NO!” Reid cried, shaking his head, desperately. “I mean, YES, they hold us back, but not for the reasons you think! There is wisdom in what they do!”

“They don’t want us to get too powerful!”

“No… Elle, they don’t want you to become so strong so quickly that you lose control. They make sure that your power only develops as quickly as your ability to control it. A Jedi who can’t control his own power is dangerous to himself and everyone around them… and eventually they can lose themselves… and that is how Jedi can Fall. Do you understand that?”

“They’ve brainwashed you.” Elle snorted in disdain.

“Elle… Please… Remember the Code…”

“The Code is a joke!” Elle laughed. Reid shook his head and slowly approached her.

“There is no emotion; there is peace.” Reid recited in a gentle voice.

“We’re not droids.” Elle countered. “There is always emotion. And we draw strength from it.”

“There is no ignorance; there is knowledge.”

“Hypocrites.” Elle laughed. “They preach knowledge, but they only let you learn what they want you to learn.”

“There is no passion; there is serenity.” Reid continued.

“You have no right to talk to me about passion…” Elle sneered. Reid stared at her. “You and Hotch… you think no one has noticed?” Reid paled. “You are in love… PASSIONATELY in love. And the Jedi would condemn you both for that… but the Sith would welcome it. Passion fuels your power.” Reid was silent. Elle circled him for a moment, then came up behind him and placed her hands on his shoulders. “… They’ve given me one chance with you, Reid… come with me… join us… or die.”

“… There is no death.” Reid whispered. “There is the Force.” He felt her hands tighten on his shoulders, then fall away.

“… I never wanted to kill you.” Elle said.

“You don’t have to.” Reid said. He turned and held out his hand. “Come back with me. Return to the Temple.”

“No. I’m never going back to those hypocrites again. And I won’t let you go back to them, either. They don’t deserve you… If the Sith can’t have you, the Jedi most certainly won’t.”

“… So you would kill me? I thought we were friends.”

“I thought we were, too.”

“I am still your friend.” Reid told her, looking her in the eyes. “Please, Elle. You’ve always looked after me… you always had my back… protected me… Let me take care of you now…” Elle smiled and walked over to him, reaching up and laying a hand on his cheek.

“… you’re a good kid…” She said softly. Then she sighed and turned, walking away. “Have you ever heard of the Vi’Tani Pod?”

“… The Vi’What? Huh?” Reid blurted and he followed her, confused.

“The Vi’Tani Pod. It’s an organism from Ryloth. You do know Ryloth, right?”

“The homeworld of the Twi’Lek.” Reid said, immediately.

“The Vi’Tani is a primitive, semi-sentient life form that is more plant than animal, but does have semi cognitive thought and limited intelligence. It has roots, but it eats.”

“… Okay.”

“It has a massive bloom surrounded by a dozen tentacles. It uses these prehensile vines to capture and subdue its prey. Smaller animals are wrestled into the central blossom, which closes around them… they’re trapped, and slowly digested. But larger creatures… the Vi’Tani has another use for them. Reproduction.”

“… How?” Reid found himself asking.

“There are two types of tentacles… the Planters, and the Feeders.” Elle continued. “They way it works is the Vi’Tani snares a creature in its tentacles and restrains it… it prefers humanoids… creatures who can experience sexual pleasure.”

“… why?” Reid asked, throat dry.

“Because they’re easier to subdue. It restrains them… it stimulates them… it penetrates them… and it works them over until they stop resisting.” Reid gulped. “The Feeder penetrates them orally, the Planter penetrates vaginally, anally, or… whatever else a creature may have…” She drawled, snorting in amusement. Reid was looking uncomfortable as he followed her. “Anyway… the Feeder secretes a thick sap and feeds it to the victim. The sap is absorbed into their body, relaxing the victims and… enhancing physical sensation… it also makes the body ready to… feed the Vi’Tani offspring.

“The sap also acts as insurance… it’s HIGHLY addictive. Even if the potential host escapes, there have been many cases when the victim has willingly returned to the Vi’Tani in their desperation to have more of the nectar… and when they return, the Vi’Tani do not lose them again… all they have to do is wave their Feeders around and the victim will throw themselves to the mercy of the Vi’Tani and will drink as much of the nectar as they can get. In experiments, those poor fools would literally drink themselves to death… or in prolonged cases, they would bleed to death internally as the sap softens and weakens tissue… blood vessels break down and leak.

“Those who are not able to get more Vi’Tani Nectar suffer extreme withdrawal symptoms… depending on how much nectar they got in their system, the withdrawal can drive them to madness, and can even lead to their death. The individual will do anything to get more nectar… even knowing that returning to the Vi’Tani will mean certain death, they can’t resist. They will do anything for more…

“As the Feeders fill the victim with their sap, the Planter lays the Vi’Tani’s eggs in the body of the victim. It prefers females, because they have a womb ready to receive the eggs, but the bowels of a male work almost as well. The eggs incubate for a few hours, but they hatch within a day.

“The hatchlings immediately begin to establish their roots… they become embedded within the flesh of their host. And they absorb the parent’s sap, along with the blood and fluids of the host. Then, after absorbing enough of the parent’s sap, they begin to secrete their own sap from the Feeder tentacles. This sap begins to break down and digest the host’s body. It’s a slow, agonizing death. The host is dead within a week.

“Once the host’s body has been broken down and everything but the bones have been devoured, the hatchlings migrate until they find a good place to take root in the ground. As they grow and mature, they stop secreting the digestive sap from the feeders and start to produce the nutritious sap that they will eventually use to feed their own young, and the digestive juices flow into the developing blossom.

Elle stopped. Reid stopped next to her. They were in a large enclosed walkway that made up the perimeter of a circular room… the enclosed walkway surrounded a dark pit.

“Why are you telling me this?” Reid asked, watching her walk up to a hatch in the wall of the walkway. She opened it and stared into the darkness of the pit. Slowly, Reid approached her. She looked at him, then looked down again. Reid moved beside her and stared down, too. Elle flipped a switch, and the pit was illuminated by dim lights overhead. Reid’s eyes widened. There before him, covering the floor of the pit, were about three dozen things that had to be Vi’Tani Pods in various stages of growth, surrounded by bones...

“So you would know.” Elle said, softly.

“Know what?” Reid gasped, unable to tear his eyes off of the Vi’Tani Pods.

“… How you are going to die.”

Reid froze at those cold words. His eyes widened and he turned and looked at Elle.

“I’m sorry.” She told him, then reached around him and seized his shoulder, spinning him around, then shoving him in the chest. Reid gasped as he was pushed through the hatch. He cried out as he slammed into the soft, moist dirt ground of the pit. He lay still for a moment, stunned, but then slowly he lifted his head. And he froze… the Vi’Tani were moving… the pods were blooming into large, electric blue blossoms… the tentacles were swaying about…

As Elle had said, each had twelve dark red tentacles any where from one to three inches wide… six of them were being held aloft, a pale blue sap dribbling from the tips, and from the tips of the other six sprouted three long, slender yellow colored tentacles about eight inches long… These were reaching out… searching for their prey… searching for him…

Heart pounding, Reid leapt to his feet and drew his Lightsaber, eyes darting around. Then, he noticed the shouts and cheers. He looked up… the enclosed walkway was full of people… Bounty Hunters… smugglers… Dark Jedi.

“Elle!” He cried, whirling and looking up at the hatch. She stood there, a satisfied smirk on her lips. Lee walked up next to her… He grinned down at Reid in triumph.

“I knew you couldn’t be trusted,” Reid gasped, then turned to plead with his friend. “… Elle… please don’t do this…”

“I’d wish you luck, but there’s no getting out of there alive.” Elle told him. She pulled her Lightsaber, and tossed it. Reid’s eyes widened, but he reached out with the Force and guided it into his left hand. “Do me proud, kid.” She said. “Go down fighting.” And then the Twi’Lek held out another Lightsaber. Smiling, Elle took it. Reid felt tears in his eyes and despair in his heart as a red blade erupted from the hilt. Elle admired it for a moment, then looked down at Reid. “This is freedom.” She told him. “I only wish you could have had it too.”

Reid shuddered… it made everything clear. She had every intention to abandon the young Jedi to his fate…

Slowly, he turned and took up a fighting stance, facing the Vi’Tani Pods, prepared to fight for his very life…
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Knights of the Old Republic Episode I: Force Bond