The source of these feelings was obvious, so I spun and began to reach out with the Force. Intent on stopping what I already knew I was going to be too late to prevent.
The wet sound of something hard and unyielding hitting flesh was eerily muffled by the fog. The same went for the sharp, choking gasp which followed. All told, no more than a second or two passed, before I swept a wide yet gentle Force-push left-to-right through the air before me. Clearing the fog from our immediate area for a few seconds.
...
The temporary retreat of the concealing mist revealed what I'd already guessed I would see, yet the actual sight still managed to shock and even sicken me a little. That barely audible choking sound had become a faltering liquid gurgle so quiet, it faded in and out of audibility, but even this quiet sound stood out in the sudden silence.
The hatred and cold fury there'd been no way to ignore only moments ago now abated with all the suddenness of their arrival, like floodwaters rapidly rushing past the place their passage had so recently devastated.
Crissayel had shifted until he resembled something much like a Gundark, if gundarks were eight feet tall, coal-black, and had four long, straight, gleaming black spikes for limbs, rather than clawed hands. He stood with his back to me, directly in front of Ravara's still floating form.
Each of his four spike-extremities were buried deeply in the Cathar's belly and chest, so it almost looked from my vantage as if the shapeshifter was preparing to embrace the murderess he'd just killed. Knowing it no longer mattered, I released my grip on the Dark Jedi's dying form. Wincing internally at the drawn-out slithering sound the bloody spikes made, as the body slid from their lengths to lay in a crumpled heap before the man who'd killed her.
Glancing to one side, I saw Padme watching the tableau with pursed lips and an expression of grim resolve. Ahsoka looked like she might sick up at any moment, but I noted with approval that she'd already recovered her lightsaber. IG-1 had left off tending to the stunned Naboo women and watching the cuffed Bpfasshi to interpose his frame between the two women, because the droid recognized the Shi'ido as a potential threat.
Taking a few steps toward the shapeshifter, while taking care to remain out of arm's reach, I called out in as neutral tone as I could manage, "Does it make it hurt any less?"
The Shi'ido remained silent long enough, I'd begun to think he had no intention of responding, or was lost in his own world of bloody self-recrimination, when he raggedly replied in a far deeper and huskier voice than his previous one, "How long have you known my sister was already dead?"
Knowing it was a risk to tell him the truth, I still answered, "The moment I laid eyes on Ravara, I knew it was almost a certainty, but I'd held out hope her sadism might have convinced her to delay the inevitable.
Then the Bpfasshi confirmed my fears. This is what Ravara does, did, Crissayel. She destroyed the lives of attractive and successful young women that reminded her of the Arkanian pirate queen who humiliated and scarred her, when she was still an apprentice.
I could tell you about how my elders tried to lock her away forever, when they realized the hatred, envy, resentment and rage inside Ravara could never be quelled, or explain how the power behind the Separatists freed dozens of monsters like Ravara to serve their ends, but it wouldn't change anything, would it?"
Pausing to give the hurting young man a chance to reply, I added very quietly when he remained silent, "Crissayel, I need you to listen to me carefully. Strip the two Bpfasshi and Ravara's body of any credsticks or valuables they're carrying, then get the fark out of here. Take a shape none of us here have seen, and leave Moenia for a couple of months.
The constabulary aren't likely to kick up too much fuss over the death of an inter-system fugitive like Ravara, but there's no sense tempting fate. You cannot be here when the constables arrive, or I'll have to help them take you in."
There still wasn't any response from the Shi'ido, so I regretfully decided to play dirty, "Your sister was terrified she'd drag you down with her, Crissayel. Are you really going to give Ravara one last victory, and make your parents lose both their children? GO!"
That got through the haze of grief and pain. The shapeshifter's initial movements were hesitant and jerky, but by the time he was finished rummaging through Ravara's belt-pouches, the Shi'ido was moving quickly and with purpose. Ahsoka and Padme were both crowding in on me as we watched him search the bound and still unconscious Dark Siders, but I hadn't taken my attention off the traumatized young man.
Which was why, when he lifted a couple of thin black chains with strange, organic-looking pendants over the heads of the two Bpfasshi, I saw and called out sharply, "DROP THOSE LIKE THEY'RE ON FIRE!"
Glancing back over his shoulder at me with an unreadable expression on his Gundark-like countenance, the huge, heavily muscled being didn't reply. He just dropped the things beside the unconscious thugs, finished his search, and, with one look back in our direction, lumbered off into the mist.
Just in time, because I could now hear the rapidly approaching footfalls of booted feet on the duracrete walkway. Fortunately, they were coming from the direction we'd initially been headed, which was the opposite direction the shapeshifter had gone.
"You just walked a killer through the steps necessary to elude the authorities," Padme remarked in a low tone not meant to carry. I didn't sense any anger or disapproval in her, but neither could I detect approval or any other sign she agreed with my decision. Ahsoka had moved close enough to listen, so I considered my reply carefully.
"My Master taught me that justice is supposed to be the process of rebalancing scales that have grown wildly imbalanced. Well, Ravara played out her sick game with dozens of innocents, and never faced any real repercussions for all that torture and murder.
This time, one of her victims turned out not to be as helpless or broken as she believed, and it killed her," My answer wasn't the kind of cogent point of philosophy I'd been hearing Jedi Masters rattle off for years, but that didn't make it less true, or less something I believed.
Ravara had had it coming, so the proverbial worm had finally turned, and it turned out said worm had been packing a repeating blaster. For me, it was really that simple.
Ahsoka very obviously wanted to argue the point, but just then a trio of constables came rushing up with stun-batons out and at the ready. I wasn't a fan of the non-lethal takedown devices, but I consoled myself with the fact the woman and two men in uniform did have a fairly effective model of blaster holstered at their sides.
Padme's expression didn't give me much clue as to what she thought of my reply, but what I was getting through the bond wasn't definitively negative, either. Her previous observation could have been a simple probe to see where our respective moral codes fell in relation to one another's, or it might be that she disapproved personally, but wasn't willing to argue the point in public.
One of the constables belatedly noticed IG-1, and reflexively went through a very adroit seeming holstering of the baton, unholstering of the blaster movement that occurred all at once, but that's where I decided to intervene.
"Constables. I'm Anakin Skywalker, Jedi Knight, and this is my Padawan learner, Ahsoka Tano. We're here as Senator Amidala's protection detail.
Queen Jamillia and Captain Panaka are both aware of the, ahh, advanced sentinel droid that is presently part of Senator Amidala's detail, and I have the Captain's signed exemption for IG-1's otherwise proscribed presence right here," These introductions I offered with the kindly yet confident smile my Master had made a part of my training, while my tone was pure 'Jedi Business, everything is under control.'
I handed the older of the two male constables the small datapad from my utility pouch, and watched as he scanned it with the eye of a professional.
Unfortunately, police officers weren't terribly inclined to accept the assurances of others that matters were under control. Not when there was a dead woman in evidence, whose body showed unmistakable signs of a bloody and violent death, at any rate.
The presence of the cuffed and unconscious Bpfasshi, as well as the mother/daughter ex-hostages just now regaining consciousness, only seemed to upset them further, but it was IG-1 that really had them on edge and about to blow.
Given the Blockade and ensuing Invasion, though, it wasn't hard to understand why the woman and the older of the two male constables were looking at the droid like they expected him to begin a violent rampage at any moment.
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