Summary: Disgruntled minions sometimes have good points...and the Jedi Council gets on the wrong end of a verbal bitch slapping!

Chapter 52: Lecturing the Bosses 101 is in Session

-Mid 27 BBY – Tythe System-

"You two are not allowed to take vacations that long again. Not if it means leaving us in charge."

Izuku aimed a half-amused grin at the exhausted looking duo across the conference table. Sacha Swiftbird, the second in command of the Shattered Shackle organization, was the one that had spoken. But Knight Tresten Agai'i, who had slowly become the leader of the Almas Jedi attached to their group, looked like she quietly agreed. The two, being among the most senior members of their growing faction, had been left in overall charge while Izuku and Aayla took their vacation.

"It wasn't that bad, was it? I didn't leave you with any major campaigns to undertake or anything."

Knight Agai'i, a blonde-haired human woman of considerable beauty, was considerably less strident than Sacha had been when she spoke up next. Which was good, considering she'd been rapidly becoming one of his 'command staff,' in so much as he really had a proper command staff at all. He'd have hated for this to have scared her off completely.

"No. It wasn't bad, so much as busy. You make it look easy enough that I don't think anyone ever realized just how much you juggle. Thankfully, while you really need to look into formalizing a command team, you have really good leaders for each individual aspect of what you're doing. Borgan Trillian handles all of your myriad business network with quite a bit of flair, only really needing input when your other interests or secrets crossover with the business side. The same is true for Commodore Lin and General T'san for the Shackles, Shil Tervo for the design team, and Governor Vy for Tythe. But they all still report to you for a lot of needs and final decisions. Along with half a dozen others in various positions. Which meant they reported to us while you were gone."

Izuku rubbed the back of his head a bit sheepishly at having it all listed out like that. He'd focused so much on making each individual piece almost run itself, that it was relatively easy for him to juggle them all. But that was because he had cheated like a bitch, as Miruko had once called it. Izuku had made it a point to absorb solid knowledge of each field from the best minds he could access via his telepathy. It wasn't the same as actually having trained properly in all the skills he had the intellectual knowledge of. But it did mean he could easily understand and cut through the jargon of a dozen different complex fields.

He supposed it was past time he started building a proper staff. Possibly starting with a personal assistant? Or was that the wrong way around? He really needed people he could leave in charge when he was called away. When he voiced that thought aloud, he got three different flat looks, from three different women. Mentally, he noted that maybe he should also look for some men to put on that staff so they could take some of the feminine ire when they Female Collective decided he'd said something stupid? Aayla was the most condescending of all, as she reached over to pat him gently on the head.

"Izu, dear, you need to do both. A secretary at the very least for yourself, possibly both a secretary and a PA. Then you also need to start forming a proper command staff…for a faction which you haven't even named. So, you know, you should probably get on top of that, too. Good luck! After all, I've got a run to Coruscant to do so the Council doesn't think I've gone rogue on them!"

Izuku shot her a betrayed look, with his lover only grinning cheerfully back at him as she refused to walk back her sentence of leaving him to his fate…

... ...

Aayla was…guilty but grateful that she'd had a legitimate excuse to leave Izuku to his fate. While she knew that she was almost inevitably going to be part of whatever command team developed for their it-really-needs-a-name faction, she was a girl of action! Not board meetings! Oh, she could do the diplomatic thing well enough. Every Jedi had to have at least a solid skill in that area before being Knighted, even if many of the less subtle knights immediately abandoned every lesson they'd ever learned about it the moment they could. Aayla at least wasn't one of those, still possessing excellent interpersonal skills and the ability to act a part.

Which absolutely did not change the fact that she preferred a battlefield, black market bust, infiltration, or even pretending to be collared arm candy for her lover, over the boring hell that was most organizations upper rungs of power. She knew, of course, that Izuku hated that sort of thing as well. He was just as much an action guy as she was a danger gal. There were two critical differences, though. The first was that Izuku could lean on his bullshit cheat power that let him understand all the things in order to cut through a lot of the minutiae. Of course, he'd paid a price in years of periodic migraines as he copied all of that knowledge he had, so it wasn't completely bullshit. But still…

The other thing, honestly the more important of the two, was that Izuku had a far better ability to recontextualize what he was doing than she knew herself to have. Izuku both could and did reframe his paperwork in terms of 'heroics.' For him, it was just as core to his ideal of 'heroics' to solve a problem with the stroke of a pen as it was to punch a slaver in the face. He might prefer to punch the slaver in the face, of course. But he still got the full dopamine satisfaction of 'doing something heroic' when he signed off on a new set of orders to expand one of the training programs for ex-slaves.

It was admirable, and Aayla wished she could do it too. The fact of the matter was that she couldn't, however, and that left her back at guilty-but-grateful that she'd escaped at least the first round of Izuku's new organizational hell. Hopefully, he didn't name their faction something stupid while she was away. But if being called the Free Republics of Super Sentai Ranger Bunnies, complete with colorful, bunny girl themed power armor for all their elite commando teams, was the price to pay for avoiding the initial pain and suffering? Well, she was okay with that. In fact, she might suggest the bunny girl and bunny boy uniforms for the official uniform of whatever high command came out of his efforts. She wouldn't mind the outfit and seeing everyone else's reaction if it somehow stuck would be hilarious. Heck, it might even make their enemies underestimate them!

Giggling at the mental images, Aayla settled into the comfortable pilot's seat of the heavily modded freighter she was flying toward Coruscant. Now that she was in hyper, she started mentally toying with the best way to go about her various objectives at the Temple. Her ship, a YT-1250, was another Anash special they kept around for covert ops, rather than something they were mass producing with the IES shipyard. Which meant she had less than two days to sort out how she wanted to approach things and in what order. It would almost certainly be best to visit the Council first. A trio of the non-Shan-family holocrons they'd recovered from Tython, along with word and recordings of some of the other things they'd found there, should go a long way in making them think she hadn't been wasting her time while out of contact…

... ...

Izuku pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes and rubbed. He wasn't exactly tired, not mentally at least. But his eyes certainly were. Which only made sense, given that he'd spent the last two days trying to create some sort of organizational structure for their faction and going through hundreds of possible people to slot into the various positions he was imagining a need for. It had taken him most of that time just to figure out what sort of structure to use, that would let him be as hands off as he could be with day-to-day operations, while still acting as a hard check on the monster he knew he was creating.

Yes, he knew he was creating a monster. If he hadn't already known that before both his and Aayla's visions on Tatooine, he certainly knew it now. And the truth was, he'd always been more aware of it than Aayla had let herself be. Unlike his love, Izuku had absolutely zero attachment to the Republic. He recognized that it served some legitimate functions still, such as keeping the massively expensive Hypercomm Relay network funded, maintained, and nominally neutral. It also sort of still served to secure freedom of movement between Republic worlds. Though from what he could see, the truth of that for things like trade, or even travel just travel in general, had rapidly taken a nosedive in the last century or so. Groups like the Trade Federation were able to gatekeep much of the Outer Rim, and even some of the Mid Rim, to prevent anything like fair business or equal trade opportunities from getting or maintaining a foothold.

Despite the few bits of good it was still doing, Izuku didn't like the Republic. Frankly, the deeper he dug, the more it seemed like some sort of dystopian nightmare among the stars. It hadn't, from what he could find of neutral history, started that way. But, well…the utter dumb fuck of a previous Chancellor that had let corporations start holding Senate seats had only added a final nail to the coffin of a government any outsider could see was dying. A death by inches, certainly, but still dying. Dying of bureaucratic bloating, corruption, and hubris, rather than to an enemy at the gates.

Izuku didn't actually care if his intended plans ended up setting the shambling corpse of the Republic on fire.

Aayla did, which was enough to make him try to mitigate the damage that his more…long-term…plans were going to do. But it wasn't enough to make him stop. He'd admired All Might for his willingness to tackle the impossible, simply because it was the right thing to do. Then he'd admittedly grown a little too willing to smash the building down to put out a proverbial fire while working with Miruko. A woman who was just as insistent on fighting for the right reasons, but who cared a whole lot less about who she had to run over in the process of doing said right thing.

All of which meant that, yes, he knew full well he was creating a monster. Had known it all along. He just had to make sure it was a monster he could direct and control, rather than one that might slip the leash and rampage over people who didn't deserve it, along with the ones who most certainly did…

... ...

"These are genuinely fascinating finds! The most recent is easily 3,500 years old, and all three of them are from time periods we have entirely too little information on. They are fantastic discoveries that the Council of First Knowledge will be years integrating into the archives, hopefully filling numerous holes in our Order's history!"

It was incredibly rare to see Jocasta Nu of all people actively animated. Something which was getting bemused or amused looks from several of the High Council present. Only Master Yaddle looked nearly as excited. Which, given that she was a member of the Council of First Knowledge just like Master Nu was, only made sense. The Archivist finished her report quickly, giving a brief summary of not just the holocrons Aayla had turned over, but of a few relic samples as well. Thankfully for Aayla's sanity, the woman departed in a whirlwind fueled by knowledge lust after giving her report. If Aayla was very lucky, she would escape Coruscant before the woman realized Aayla was still here, and the only known individual to have stepped foot on Tython in the last millennium or so.

"Good you did, Knight Aayla. Unexpected, this particular find. But more to report, you have, yes?"

It was, of course, Grandmaster Yoda who brought the Council back to order after Master Nu's quick exit. Aayla, unphased by the sudden return of attention to her, nodded to the old…whatever he was. Izuku's theory that he was something called a 'Muppet,' being puppeted by an ancient ghost was amusing, but probably not accurate.

"Yes, Master Yoda. I am not an archeologist, so you can imagine my primary reason for locating Tython was not merely the recovery of history. Master Tholme alerted me to the…resurgence of an old enemy, some time ago. To my most recent knowledge, I believe he and the other experts on investigation have so far come up blank. As such, I decided to put my own training from Master Vos and Master Tholme to work, but to try a different track. Instead of looking for money or shadow networks, I focused on locating places that might contain Force Nexuses or other Force related phenomenon that might attracted a Dark Sider user's interest. Tython was only the latest stop. Before that, I also located a Force Nexus on Tatooine that I'm unsure the Order is aware of?"

She made that last part a question and saw virtually every Master present turn to look at either Master Yoda or Master Yaddle. Both of them got the far away look in their eyes that said they were using Force techniques to search literally hundreds of years of knowledge. Both, however, shook their heads after a minute or two. It was Yaddle who spoke, frowning slightly.

"There are mentions of the Jedi Order having once had some sort of retreat or rite of passage on that oddly significant world. But, unless there is something in the archives I've simply never stumbled upon, I don't think there are any remaining mentions of its location."

Aayla nodded, not exactly surprised. Which was the first thing she said aloud, too.

"I'm completely unsurprised by that, Master Yaddle. There is some sort of Forced-based illusion, powerful and old, over the Nexus. You need to go through a specific sequence of events to gain access, which is likely the rite you're referring to. With the help of a Jawa Shaman of all beings, I was able to find it and go through the rite to access it. It proved to be a completely neutral Nexus, with no signs of having been visited by any Dark Siders in eons. But I've taken note of both it's location and the needed method in my full report to the Council of First Knowledge."

There were certainly quite a few signs of interest around the chamber. Force Nexuses weren't exactly common phenomenon. Let alone stable ones that had been hidden in some fashion. Still, they could read about it from the report. She had more to say about the events on Tatooine…some of which they weren't going to like.

"I have more to say on the matter of Tython, as there were signs of Dark Siders having been there, possibly as recently as three hundred years after the New Sith Wars, but there is an issue I ran into on Tatooine that I would like to register my extremely strong displeasure about first."

The sudden tightness in her voice caused the entire Council to sit up straighter, though a good half of them were also glaring at her for daring to take even that strident of a tone with them. Yoda, ever the voice of reason, spoke before anyone else could.

"Upset, clearly you are. Under control you have it, to your credit. Explain you will, what has caused you such a strong reaction."

There was a warning mixed in with the comment about her having it under control, and Aayla took it for what it was. A tacit approval to speak her mind so long as she kept her emotions under control. Not caring that they saw her do it, she took a deep, meditative breath and blatantly reached out to the Force for calm. A few eyes widened at her doing so, since the Force itself seemed to reach back and settle on her with…approval? That sort of thing wasn't unheard of, but it was certainly unusual, and it was going to make what she had to say have a whole order of magnitude more…well…force behind it.

"Which utterly, abysmally, stupid moron on this Council made the horrifically thickheaded and borderline malicious mistake of leaving Shmi Skywalker in slavery on Tatooine? Because whichever one of you complete, karking, dipshits, is responsible, is going to be sparring with me whether you like it or not. And I'm not going to be gentle."

The complete, utter calm in both her emotions and her Force Presence made the vitriolic nature of that statement fail to register for just a few bare seconds. Then, several less than calm Force Presences reacted, mouths opening to sharply take her to task…before a tap of Yoda's gimer stick sent a shockwave of pressure though the room that silenced them all. Notably, it didn't affect Aayla. A sign of frankly ridiculous control she wasn't sure anyone but Master Fay or Master Bnar could duplicate.

"Grave accusation, this is. Sure you are, that on purpose this…oversight…happened?"

Yoda's mix of calmness and very much not happy Force Presence did a surprisingly good job of tempering Aayla's cold fury. She'd never once felt the Grandmaster radiating that much displeasure, not even when Master Vos outright shouted at a few of the High Council members once. Thankfully, it wasn't pointed at her. Which, she realized abruptly, made sense. Yoda was well known for spending time with every single clan of younglings that came through the temple, having a much higher affinity for children than any other sitting member of the High Council.

Better yet, Aayla had checked. There were rules in place for a situation like Anakin and Shmi's. Rules that existed for the exact reasons that Aayla herself was furious. For all that they could be too detached as a whole, the Jedi Order were not stupid. Leaving emotional landmines in their student's pasts was not a good way to go about making the stable foundations they wanted in their Initiates. Do to physical developmental needs, not all species could be brought into the Temple so early that they had no memory of their childhood equivalents. Nor was it that unusual for a near-human student to be taken as late as five. Anakin had been an exception because of how old he'd been for a human. Aayla herself had been close to turning five when she'd been accepted, and thanks to Jedi memory-enhancement techniques, actually still had fairly clear memories of her time as a slave on Ryloth.

The Rules, had Anakin's placement been handled correctly, should have seen the Jedi moving Heaven and Earth to make sure Shmi was in a safe environment. Not in contact with Anakin, no. But somewhere removed from immediate danger that could linger on a young mind that was being actively encouraged to reach out to the galaxy through the Force. Leaving a parent or sibling in slavery or other immediate danger was triply stupid. Stupid once for thinking the kid wouldn't remember something that traumatizing. Stupid a second time for thinking that the 'reaching out' exercises taught to all younglings wouldn't show horrible things happening to their loved ones if they'd been left in such situations. Then stupid a third time over for not expecting it to eventually be an issue.

Master Quinlan had once likened having the Force to be the equivalent of possessing Protagonist Syndrome, and Aayla had never heard a better description. Being a trained Force user doubled down on that and virtually guaranteed you would 'live in interesting times' and that coincidences didn't really exist for you the way causality said they should. Not expecting something as big as a violent or tragic past to pop up again for a Jedi or Sith was the height of rampant dumbassery, and the Jedi weren't unable to understand that. Hence what The Rules said about the situation.

"I am one hundred percent certain that, at the very least, there was grotesque levels of incompetence involved, Grandmaster. I discovered from Shmi that she and her owner had worked together to send a message to the Temple to make sure Anakin had been accepted and was alright. Since the message was sent to the Temple, not to Anakin specifically, it should have been responded to by the Council of Reassignment. But they never received a reply. Not to the first message…or to the other three that Shmi managed to send over the years."

Aayla only paused a moment before letting her tone harden again as she pointed out what all of them likely already knew.

"I'm sure I don't need to tell you that such is a gross violation of the Order's own rules, as failing to confirm the arrival of a student with the parent that gave them up is a fantastic way to utterly wreck our public image. The last thing the Order needs is another incident like with Initiate Wa'xen, who was only given up by one parent when the other wasn't looking, involving the Order in a legal custody battle that dragged on for years."

More than one member of the council winced at that. The general public might believe that Jedi stole children. But, save in cases like Aayla's or Anakin's where they were being rescued from slavery, that just flat out wasn't the case. The Jedi could and would go to considerable effort to convince the parents of Force Sensitive children it was for the best, highlighting not only the opportunity it was but the potential dangers of untrained Force Sensitives.

For all that they might occasionally apply a bit of social pressure, however, outside of the very carefully defined exceptions, they did not steal children. The legal case Aayla had referenced was a perfect example of why. It had been an absolute nightmare for the Jedi, as they hadn't even known the child's mother was still alive. Let alone that she'd had joint custody of the child in question. It was also recent enough that every member of the current Council had been involved with the debacle.

Despite the many winces, the single greatest reaction in the room was Yoda's. And it wasn't to the reminder of the rough legal case. Instead, the moment Aayla had dropped her bombshell that yes, she was sure, the pressure he'd been putting out had collapsed. For a brief instant a feeling of sorrow tinged with great age had replaced it, before the Grandmaster fully pulled his aura back in. His ears were drooped in a clear sign of distress, even as he pointed his gimer stick firmly at one of the other High Council members. Adi Gallia was, even as she was pointed to, already tapping away at a dataslate she'd pulled from somewhere. She was looking extremely unhappy as she did.

"I can already see the problem, Master Yoda, even if I wasn't yet a member of the Council of Reassignment at the time it happened. Skywalker doesn't have an Initiate file. Reassignment only handles Initiates, being the most logical ones to do so since we need have to be familiar with them when they switch development tracks. Either by becoming a Padawan or else getting assigned to the various Service Corps which are under our guidance. But Skywalker never was an Initiate. He was made straight into a Padawan for Knight Kenobi due to…extenuating circumstances."

The Jedi Master frowned harshly at that, likely not agreeing with Kenobi having essentially defied the Council in doing that in the first place. He'd gotten away with it mostly because they couldn't stop him, and he was otherwise a model Jedi. If he was going to train someone they initially refused, better to at least keep them both close to make sure nothing went wrong. Only, it looked like someone had dropped the ball somewhere.

"There is still a case of incompetence here, Grandmaster, as Knight Secura has pointed out. But it was a case of someone being lazy rather than malicious, I suspect. Without a file in our database, one of our attendant Knights, or even Padawans, likely dismissed the messages. If they'd done their due diligence, the messages would have been reported up the chain, and most likely forwarded to Kenobi as the only real authority on Skywalker and the situation he came from. That will need to be tracked down and the individual punished. However…it doesn't explain everything. It only explains the messages being un-responded to. I have no idea who should have been responsible for seeing to Shmi in the first place?"

There was a general murmur at that, with many of the other masters seeming to share her uncertainty. One of them seemed to know, however, as Plo Koon spoke up a moment later.

"Normally, it would be the Seekers, who are part of the Acquisition Division. But this is a bit more complicated as Skywalker wasn't found by a Seeker, but by a non-Seeker in Master Jinn. I've been through the same process myself, when I discovered young Ashoka Tano on Shili. Master Jinn should have reported the details to the Seekers for them to handle. Only…"

Mace Windu, who looked like he had a migraine by this point, picked up where Koon left off.

"Only Qui-Gon died before he got the chance, and Kenobi was literally still a Padawan. He was the only other one who was involved directly, and he couldn't have possibly known he was supposed to do that."

There was a heartbeat or two of silence. Then the grave voice of the Grandmaster spoke up again.

"Guilty, this Council is, then. Knew the circumstances, we did. Followed up, one of us should have. Failed we have. Damage done we cannot unmake, but actions to make correction we must now take. Knight Secura, the status of the boy's mother?"

Much of the wind had been pulled from Aayla's sails by the revelation that this had been an oversight. One that shouldn't have happened. But the sort of falling-through-the-cracks that couldn't be blamed on any single person. She was going to have to insist, stridently, that corrections be made to make sure it couldn't happen again. But she got the feeling from the simmering determination in both Plo Koon and Adi Gallia's Force presences that she wasn't going to be the only one doing that.

"Safe. Thankfully, I was able to directly contact Izuku Midoriya. I'm sure you all know from the operation against the Karazak Slavers' Cooperative that he has a great many contacts in anti-slavery…everything, really. He arranged for Shmi to be freed and entered into one of his programs for ex-slaves. I took her to the program in question myself, to make sure there were no more issues, and was pleased with what I saw. She was assigned a professional therapist, set up with new accounts in her name, and offered a wide range of opportunities for future training."

Aayla hesitated for a moment, mentally rolling over exactly how much to say. Then decided to throw the Council a little rope to see if they used it to recover from drowning or hung themselves with it instead.

"I also brought a message from her directly for Anakin, with a personal promise from me it would be delivered. I know that is…unusual. But given the circumstances, I felt it was the best option we had to undo some of the damage this may have done to Skywalker the younger."

There were…mixed reactions to that. Some of the Council nodded, including Plo Koon and Adi Gallia both. Others looked uncertain, and a few more looked outright disapproving. Even those last didn't speak, however, instead letting the Grandmaster weigh in first.

"Unusual, yes. Approve normally, I would not. Given our failure already, however, agree I do. Undo the damage if we can, we must. Extending the exception, a way to do this is."

That settled down those that disapproved, even as many of those who had been uncertain clearly shifted their stance to align with his. It was interesting to watch that happen. Possibly even concerning. But that was a matter to think about later. For now, best not push…or let them know about the high security comm that Aayla had for Anakin.

"In that case, Masters, I supposed I will have to put off dueling whoever is responsible until Master Gallia knows who it is. For now, let us return to the topic of Tython. As I said, there were signs a Dark Side user had been their post-reformation. Though I'm unsure if they had any connection to the current group of Sith we are dealing with…"

And with that, they all moved on. It hadn't been quite what she'd expected, and she was very much uncertain if that was a good or a bad thing.

... ... ... ... ... ...

A/N 1: Woo. We get to see the Council get chewed out! On that topic though...I'm threading a VERY fine line with the Jedi Order in this story. Frankly, the Jedi Order in the movies, cartoons, and even to a lesser extent in the novels? They come off as cartoonishly incompetent. Which is...reallllllyy a hard sell for me. The Jedi have been around for a long, LONG time. The idea that they haven't codified some extremely basic rules of 'how not to fuck up epically' is just...not believable.

As a result, I've tried to sort of reshuffle them a bit, without actually changing much. To treat them as if they are actually sane, competent individuals, rather than caricatures. There's no way they DON'T know that Jedi basically have a 'live in interesting times' curse. It's literally the whole point of their Order to go out and fix all the horrible things that throw the galaxy out of whack. Which makes the idea they wouldn't be 'genre savvy' enough to avoid pitfalls like leaving a student's family enslaved...nonsense. They literally teach kids to reach out and connect to information in the galaxy, and it routinely shows them horrible shit happening to people they care about. Why would they actively make that WORSE?

Ergo, my explanation of what happened with Anakin and Shmi, that they fell through cracks in a system that had never been noticed, because normally no student that old (human at least) gets taken in. The dogpile of exceptions regarding him, combined with the distraction of a Sith popping up, conspiring to create a fuck up that, in fact, the Council isn't actually okay with...