//------------------------------// // Chapter 17: Coruscant - This Isn’t The First Time/The Argument Scene // Story: Star Wars: The Trials of the Force (Part One) // by Admiral Producer //------------------------------// “I think I speak for all of us when we say that we’re very sorry, Silverstream,” Obi Wan spoke solemnly. “We should’ve more closely monitored Petro.“ Following the incident in the Archives, Petro was put on trial before the Republic courts following the hearing being scheduled by the Council. There was overwhelming evidence to prove that he had mastermind the attack, and he knew that there would be no way that he would be leaving as a free person. All he could do was wait for the inevitable as the prosecution used video footage from the confrontation and his own confession to support their claims. In a desperate bid to save him, Katooni attempted to sneak into the court and testify in Petro’s defense, but she was not allowed in due to the Jedi knowing what she was going to do. She was briefly detained by the clone troopers on the counts of obstructing justice, but Silverstream found her later on and bailed her out using her status as a Jedi Knight. The deliberations took about four hours, but ultimately, Petro was found guilty of masterminding the Separatist attack on Coruscant and was subsequently expelled from the Jedi Order. He was sentenced to life in Galactic Prison, much to Katooni’s heartbreak. The charges against Silverstream were immediately dropped after Petro was safely in custody and she was restored to her high status within the Order. Now Silverstream and Katooni were standing in front of the Jedi Council. They had wasted no time in apologizing to her following the rogue youngling’s arrest, but it felt empty in a way that Silver couldn’t quite describe. It felt like they were just going through the motions in an attempt to appease her. There wasn’t anything genuine in their words, and she could tell. Had she not proved herself, they would’ve been more than happy to expel her from the Order like they had done to Ahsoka so long ago. The betrayal she felt that they had initially doubted her innocence was insurmountable and suddenly, she could empathize with Ahsoka and understand her desire to leave. Even though she wasn’t thinking of doing the same, mainly due to the fact that she didn’t know where else to go and she didn’t know her way back home to Equestria, the bitterness still plagued her mind and wouldn’t leave her. She had been ripped away from the only existence she had ever known and forced to adapt to a a new life foreign to her, yet just when she had finally embraced it, it was nearly taken from her. Not even having Katooni by her side and Anakin being on her defense as always could help lighten the mood. There was no way she could’ve been the mastermind behind that attack and she knew it. They all knew it. Despite this, however, they still considered her a suspect and asked her to prove her innocence, a task that could’ve been near impossible had it not been for her Padawan exposing her friend by chance and revealing the truth. She could’ve very nearly lost everything, and the possibility terrified her to the very core. “You have no reason to forgive us,” Mace Windu chimed in. “Just so you know. We’re aware that you must be feeling many conflicting emotions brought upon by your accusation, and there is no excuse for us believing you of all Jedi to be the culprit.” Master Yoda nodded. “Hm. More than conflicted, you are feeling, Silverstream. But unjustified, it is not. But redemption to be had, surely there must be.” Katooni seemed to be having none of it as she wasted no time in clapping back at the Grand Master. “Redemption, my ass. This isn’t the first time you falsely accused someone of a crime they didn’t do! You know you would’ve kicked Silverstream out had I not proven her innocence by accident!” “Katooni!” Silverstream admonished her. “You don’t talk to Master Yoda like that. Apologize to him now.” The Tholothian girl’s eyes reflected anger as she shook her head vigorously. “Why?! So they can do it again?! Someone needs to tell them to stop doing this. More people will fall victim to their "judgement" if we don’t speak up.” “That does not mean you can be disrespectful to the Council!” she shot back. “Say you’re sorry to Master Yoda. We’ll talk about this later.” Katooni held firm and didn’t move. Anakin sighed. “I’m sorry, Silverstream, but I have to side with Katooni here. This isn’t okay.” He stood up from his seat and turned around to face the other Masters. “You guys should not have suspected her at all. She is by far the last person to pull something like this on Coruscant. Why any of this had to happen again is beyond me. When Ahsoka was accused, you turned your backs on her! You went through all this trouble of assigning Silverstream to me, only to turn your backs on her as well when it was most convenient for you! How are either of them supposed to feel?!” “Standard protocol, this is.” argued Yoda. “From the most unexpected of sources, betrayal can come. Trust implicitly, we must not. For fear of being blinded by the dark side, vigilant, we must be.” “Vigilant?!” Anakin yelled. “You were about to do the exact same thing to Silverstream as you did to Ahsoka! Just because she proved her innocence doesn’t mean you can walk all over her! You apologize and then you do it again. It’s the same cycle, every single time!” “How do you expect us to handle stuff like this, Anakin?!” Obi Wan demanded. “This was a large-scale Separatist attack on the capital! It cost the Republic tons of precious ships to deescalate, and even that caused a ton of casualties! At least we gave her the opportunity to prove her innocence, which is more than we did for Ahsoka.” “That doesn’t matter,” Anakin replied bitterly. “You should’ve known better than to accuse someone who you know would NEVER hurt a fly!!” He threw his hands into the air and closed his eyes, taking a few deep breaths to calm himself. “You’re lucky that Silver was there to bring me back to the light. Had you done this beforehand, I wouldn’t’ve hesitated to join Chancellor Palpatine.” The Council members didn’t say a word, silently absorbing this information with grim expressions on their faces. Anakin opened his eyes again and faced Master Yoda again for a final time. “I’m resigning from the Council. Effective immediately.” “Anakin!!” Obi Wan tried to say, attempting in vain to stop his former apprentice from doing this, but to no avail. Even he knew that the Order had messed up and there was nothing he could say to excuse it. With that, he stormed out of the Council Chambers without another word. Silverstream watched him go with tears in her eyes. It was only rarely that she saw him this bitter, and it upset her each time. In contrast, Katooni’s expression was unreadable, almost as if she didn’t know how to take this news. Master Yoda closed his eyes in deep sorrow. “Rightfully furious, Master Skywalker is. Had this revelation coming, we did.” “So what is our next course of action?” Mace Windu asked. “Obviously there is much to be done if we want to rebuild Coruscant following the attack.” “We will not hesitate to do so the moment we get the chance,” answered Obi Wan. “I will be informing Chancellor Amidala that the Council shall be directing funds towards the capital’s reconstruction. It’s the least we can do, considering that one of us was responsible.” He turned to look at Silverstream. “You should keep Katooni away from visiting Petro in the meantime until she’s fully healed from this whole situation emotionally.” “Master Kenobi, no!” Katooni protested. “I want to see him before-“ “I understand,” Silverstream said respectfully, cutting her Padawan off and bowing before him. She glanced at Katooni angrily. “You’re in enough trouble right now. Please don’t make this more difficult for us than it already is.” Katooni reluctantly dropped the argument at her request, though her expression indicated that they were not done talking about it. She kept her eyes to the ground, still embittered by everything that had previously transpired. “The Council is adjourned,” Mace Windu announced, gesturing to the other seated members. “We must go inform the Senate of what has occurred. You two are free to go.” Jedi Temple Dormitories- Silverstream’s Room Silverstream spread out the blanket on her bed, sighing deeply as she did so. The events of earlier were still weighing heavily on her mind and she could not shake the thoughts away no matter how hard she tried. She still didn’t know how to handle the fact that one of the younglings that she presumably had grown up with tried to destroy Coruscant and topple the Republic government, all because he hadn’t been chosen as her apprentice. It made her sick to her stomach that someone would be capable of doing such horrible things. Of course, this wasn’t the first time such a thing had happened to her. She remembered how Cozy Glow had attempted to drain all magic from Equestria, and label she and her friends as criminals. It was a traumatic experience that had fortunately ended with the pegasus filly’s arrest, but the fact that she had been capable of masterminding such an elaborate plot still terrified her. Any one of her classmates could’ve been secretly evil as well, and she would never know. And now she was being forced to relive all that again with Petro basically attempting to destroy the galaxy, all in a bid to upstage his best friend and sister. He had always had a bit of an ego to him, but to do something like this was unmatched and borderline criminal. She didn’t know the boy well, but she knew in her heart that he wasn’t usually like this and she just wanted to make up with him no matter what. However, she knew it would never happen. The Council had ordered her to stay away from visiting the Galactic Prison and she understood better than to defy them, especially after being on such thin ice with them not too long ago. If only she could’ve seen this coming and talked Petro down. He was just hurting deep down. He wasn’t evil. He just wanted to belong. But there was nothing she could do about any of it, and that just made her even sadder. “Silverstream?” Silver whirled around upon hearing her name being called, relaxing when she saw Katooni enter the room. The girl seemed exhausted and like she hadn’t slept in days. There were bags under her eyes and her face looked red from crying. She could only speculate what must’ve just happened. “Oh Katooni,” Silverstream greeted her. “It’s just you. Are you feeling okay?” Katooni shook her head. “No. I…haven’t really been able to sleep since Petro got convicted. It’s been hard on me…” “I can only imagine,” she replied emphatically. “You’ve been through so much together and…I know you were both close, even if I might not remember it.” Katooni’s eyes glistened with tears. “We didn’t always get along, but…that was part of the fun of it. It was this back and forth…balancing each other out. I didn’t have much confidence and in turn, he showed the most. Petro’s always had high expectations of himself and I could see it. He’s always the first to rush into battle, fight pirates…he even wanted to fight General Grievous, even though his lightsaber emitter matrix was inverted.” Silverstream was surprised to hear this. “Really?” “Yeah. Deep down…he was just compensating for his own lack of self-esteem. He built a wall up to protect himself from getting hurt by anyone or anything he didn’t know and it was hard to tear it down…it took our whole rescue mission of Ahsoka in order for me to finally see the real him. But ever since then, we’ve been only getting closer.” “I can’t imagine then how it must’ve felt…to see him try so hard to upstage you due to my decision.” Katooni nodded slowly. “It was like I didn’t even recognize him anymore…I never thought he’d go so far as to try and attack Coruscant all to prove a point. All I could do was wonder…what I did to hurt him so much.” “You didn’t do anything, Katooni,” replied Silverstream firmly. “It was him. He chose to do this, not you. He chose to…throw his life away and now he’s suffering the consequences for it. You aren’t responsible for what he did.” “I must be!” Katooni cried. “All of this was started because he wanted to be your Padawan and I took it from him! He wanted it so badly because we all grew up together as younglings! He felt like…he felt like he could trust you. And I stole that away from him all because I wanted a family!! It was selfish. He deserves it more than I do.” “No he doesn’t,” Silver argued. “I chose you because you have a good heart. You see the good in everyone no matter who they are, including a crusty old smuggler. I knew you wanted to be my Padawan and I chose you because you earned it.” “But you don’t know that!” Katooni shot back, tears streaming down her face. “What do I offer that he doesn’t already do better?! All I did was talk to you, show you around, help guide you through adjusting, and suddenly I earn that position? It doesn’t matter if I befriended Hondo. Anyone could’ve and would’ve done that in my place.” “Would they have though?” Silverstream asked her. Katooni blinked. “What?” “Would just anyone have shown the same strength of will and compassion that you did? When Hondo attempted to leave on his private ship, would someone else have had the ability to stand up to him and put him in his place?” “I-“ “You’re loyal to your friends, Katooni. You’re loyal to the Jedi, you’re loyal to the Republic. You fight for them when it matters most and you’re not afraid to stand up and fight for what you believe in when it matters the most. I can’t ask for anything more than that.” Katooni still looked uncertain. She shifted uncomfortably for a moment before wiping falling tears from her eyes with her her hands. “Other Masters probably would have greater expectations…” “But I don’t.” “Why don’t you?” Katooni asked softly. “You could’ve found someone better to be your Padawan. Someone who…wouldn’t indirectly be the reason you were almost expelled.” Silverstream walked towards her and put a comforting claw on her shoulder. “Because I see myself in you…before I came here, I didn’t know what my own worth was…I was so unsure of myself and no one could help me. You helped me believe in myself. Now it’s time for you to believe in your own self worth, Katooni. Do you trust me enough to believe I made the right choice?” Katooni stared back at her, seemingly thinking about what she was saying. Meanwhile, the other younglings had gathered outside of Silverstream’s room and were listening in on the whole conversation. They knew that eavesdropping was wrong, yet they couldn’t help themselves but be worried for their friend. It was a difficult time and they were all in the process of healing over Petro’s betrayal. The whole ordeal still was hard to believe, even though they knew in their hearts it has happened. After all, they had lived through it all and seen everything go down for themselves. There was no denying the truth and it hurt them to admit it. All of them had known the boy for their entire lives, and it was so unlike him to try and get back at everyone for what seemed like something so petty. But the truth could not be denied, and the fallout of it all still weighed heavily on them all. None of them would be the same ever again after this. Zatt was the first to speak up and break the awkward silence. “Poor Katooni. She’s really going through so much. I can’t imagine how hard this must be for her.” “We were all close with Petro,” Gadoni stated. “But Katooni? The two of them did things together so many times they were like siblings…” Gunji roared. “Gunji’s right,” Zatt agreed. “We’re all she has now. I know we’re all still reeling from what Petro did, but we have to suck it up and be there for Katooni. Silverstream can’t be expected to be by her side all the time. She has her own life too.” Byph made sounds in agreement. “But how can we?” asked Gadoni worriedly. “I mean, we can’t even get over it ourselves.” She sighed. “I just…don’t feel comfortable telling her anything that I don’t believe in myself. It just doesn’t seem right.” “I know,” Zatt replied solemnly. “But…we’re her family too. We know her even more than Silverstream does. We’ve been through so much together. If anyone can get through her and help her by herself again, it’s us. Silver needs to worry about her own life. This should be our responsibility to deal with as friends.” “Shhhhhhh!!” Gadoni cut in. “Quiet! I hear them talking again.” The younglings rushed to the window end peered in, only to see that Silverstream and Katooni were now engaged in a heated argument. This instantly made them greatly concerned and they peered closer to get a better idea of what was being said. …”Katooni, I don’t know if you’re trying to pull a prank on me or what. He literally tortured you and yelled at you, blamed you for something that you rightfully earned. You earned your Padawan status and Petro tried to take that from you. I don’t know why you’re defending him.” “You don’t understand!” Katooni shouted back, “Petro only acted like that because he desperately wanted to be chosen! He admired you and wanted to be your Padawan!” “That doesn’t excuse trying to restart the Clone Wars!!” Silverstream yelled. She took a deep breath. “Katooni…I know you want to believe there’s good in him, but there just isn’t! Even if there was, how do you expect me to ask the Council to release him?! He is a criminal! He chose this for himself!” “But he’s not evil!!” Katooni argued. She looked at her Master with pleading eyes. “Please…at least let me see him…so I can tell him I’m sorry.” Silverstream’s eyes softened. “You have nothing to apologize for. Petro chose this life of crime over his friendship with you. He could’ve chosen to talk things out with you, but he didn’t. Don’t blame yourself for something you can’t control.” “He’s more than just a friend to me, he’s like my brother!!” Katooni screamed. “We grew up together, we were like family!! You were too! Just because you don’t remember it doesn’t mean it didn’t happen!!!!” “I never did any of those things!!” Silverstream shot back. “I told you already, it was a false life created by the Force! I don’t have any attachment to him and I never did!!” “But I do!!” “That doesn’t matter!! THE COUNCIL ORDERED YOU TO STAY AWAY FROM HIM!!!” “I DON’T GIVE A DAMN ABOUT THE COUNCIL!!!” Silverstream did a double take upon hearing this. “What?” “They accused Ahsoka, banished her from the Order, tried to do the same to you, and you think I have any respect for their decisions anymore?!” Katooni yelled at her. “So many bad decisions on top of one another, getting the Jedi into a war they never should’ve been in! I would’ve left the Order a long time ago had it not been for the Force sending you here!” “Katooni-“ “I don’t owe those bureaucrats anything and neither should you!! They were the whole reason Master Skywalker nearly fell to the dark side to begin with! Are you really going to follow their ban on attachments now, Master?! Especially when attachments were exactly what saved him?!” “I-“ “Are you?!” “KATOONI, THAT’S ENOUGH!!!” Silverstream snapped as loud as she could. She regretted doing that immediately. Tears filled Katooni’s eyes and she began to cry. Silverstream took a deep breath to calm herself, “Katooni, I’m sorry.” She reached out to comfort her Padawan, but she quickly moved away from her, shielding herself. “I’m sorry, Master…” Katooni said in a choked voice. Without another word, she ran out of the room in tears, slamming the door behind her. “Katooni, wait!!” Silverstream called out, but it was too late. The Tholothian girl was already gone from sight, most likely on her way to the Galactic Prison. She couldn’t believe that she had just snapped at her own Padawan, especially when she was already in the most vulnerable state. She closed her eyes and whimpered, tears of her own coming down from her eyes. Who was she kidding? She wasn’t cut out to be a mentor. She didn’t even have control over her own emotions. That was when the other younglings appeared from behind a corner and walked over towards her. Gadoni was the first to put a comforting hand around her shoulder, silently sharing in her sorrow. Silver opened her eyes and took a shaky breath to calm herself. She wiped her tears and stared back at them. “We heard everything…” Zatt commented. “You shouldn’t have snapped at her. She made a good point about the Council.” “I know,” Silverstream replied. “It’s just…I don’t know, something she said just hit too close to home…maybe it was the part about family.” “She’s right though,” Gadoni told her. “Growing up, our company was all we had, the closest thing to a family. None of us remember ours at all, but Katooni at least can make out faces…I think that’s why she wants to hold onto something familiar so bad…because everything around her is changing.” “But she wanted me to ask the Council to release Petro,” Silverstream said wearily. “What should I have said to that?” “I don’t know. But you did come off as insensitive, trying to remind her that everything she ever remembered about you was a lie. It may be true, but that’s the last thing she wants to hear. You just made her mood worse by saying that…” “Sorry…” Silverstream apologized. “That was uncalled for, I know…I just…didn’t know what else to say. I still don’t…” Silverstream slept fitfully later that night, her mind still thinking about Katooni and the argument they had. She didn’t know how she was going to apologize to her, but she knew that she would have to worry about that in the morning. There was nothing she could do now, and all she could do was wait for all of the high emotions to boil over. She didn’t really dream of anything and she woke up frequently. But she fell back to sleep each time and after a while, her mind stopped obsessing over what had happened and she was able to sleep more soundly. But that peace was about to be interrupted when she suddenly heard someone screaming in her ear. “Silverstream!! Silverstream!!!!” Silverstream’s eyes snapped open in an instant and her vision cleared. She looked up to see that the person waking her was none other than Anakin. He looked panicked and was desperately trying to shake her awake. Seeing him like this put her brain on high alert and she was on her guard. “Anakin, what’s going on?!” Silverstream demanded. “It’s four in the morning!” She had no idea what was happening and why he looked so alarmed, but she would soon her answer. It was an answer that she hoped she would never hear, and one that would irrevocably change her life forever. “Katooni is gone!!”