A Cherished Friendship and a Lesson Taught

After separating from Mace Windu and Salem, Death suggested to 'Queen Amidala' that they lay low with the Supreme Chancellor Valorum for a while until the Jedi can act against Sheev Palpatine, since he definitely did not want Padme getting caught up in this matter.

Padme's training was not even remotely sufficient to handle someone like Darth Sidious, so he felt worrying for her safety was completely natural.

The fake 'Queen Amidala' nodded in acceptance of Death's suggestion and apologized to Chancellor Valorum for imposing upon him.

"Oh, it's truly fine." The Chancellor insisted "Your friend here has done a great service to the Republic. I can at least do this much." he explained to her and proceeded to lead the group to his own shuttle, which would bring them all to his lodgings.

Qui Gon and Obi-Wan tagged along as well, just in case.

Upon reaching his residence with the group, Supreme Chancellor Valorum called for an emergency session of the Senate in four hours time, and forwarded the information to the Jedi Council.

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"Interesting tale, it is. Believe it, do you?" Yoda asked Mace Windu, who had just finished recounting everything he had heard and seen as a result of the meeting with 'Queen Amidala' and her entourage.

"As unbelievable as it may seem, my intuition tells me that they are telling the truth, Grandmaster." Mace Windu acknowledged "It would appear that they have some kind of trans-galactic space travel method, but I don't know the details. Qui Gon or his Padawan may know more, but under the circumstances I made the judgement call that they should remain with Queen Amidala, in case this 'Sith Lord' comes after her again."

"Understandable, your caution is." Yoda acknowledged "A Sith Lord, in such high position, allow, we must not"

The surrounding Jedi masters nodded in agreement.

"Queen Amidala also asked me to seek the aide of the Jedi in freeing Naboo, citing that since the master of this conspiracy is a Sith, that we may have greater leeway to act." Mace Windu added.

"Confront Senator Palpatine, we must. If Sith Lord, he is, then act we may" Yoda declared while getting nods of agreement from most of the others "Even if, believe, you do, Mast Windu. Verify, we must, before act we can, as Queen Amidala requests. If do not, then overstepping power, it will look like."

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After arriving at the Supreme Chancellor's residence, Chancellor Valorum started preparing for an emergency senate session, and to avoid suspicion, Death had to remain near 'the Queen'. Pyrrha, though, was free to accompany Padme to a resting room that had been prepared for them.

Padme and Pyrrha both sat on the bed and Padme sighed, trying hard not to vocalize her frustrations right now with the whole situation Her people were suffering, and Padme couldn't help but feel like she was sitting on her own hands and was unsatisfied with her progress so far.

Rationally, Padme had been convinced by Death that she was following the best path, but that did not stop her from wishing that she could do something more for her people.

"Padme. It is just you and I here," Pyrrha explained to Padme with a sympathetic tone "You can vent with me if you want. I wont judge you. We are friends now, after all, and friends support each other."

"Is a Queen allowed to have friends?" Padme asked, a look of sincerity on her eyes as she faced Pyrrha.

Pyrrha snickered "Everyone needs friends, Padme. Especially people with immense influence."

"Really?" Padme asked, wondering if Pyrrha could somehow understand her. She had been thrust into the position of Queen at eleven years old, and secretly carried such doubts that she hid from the world while focusing on her duties and responsibilities.

Pyrrha nodded "When I was thirteen years old, I participated in the Mistral Regional Tournament for the first time, and I won it. Since it is open to people from 13 to 16 years old, it was a big deal that a 13 year old girl won, beating out all of her seniors. That earned me a bit of fame, then the next year I came in third place due to running into my husband Death there, who eventually won it. Placing so high increased my reputation again. The next two years Death did not participate so I won them both."

"This tournament was a big deal in your world?" Padme asked her.

"You have no idea" Pyrrha chuckled "My home world, Remnant, was home to soulless monsters called the Creatures of Grimm, which we were constantly fighting against to survive. As a result, warriors who could become huntsman and huntresses are like great heroes. I became a revered prodigy, someone people tried to emulate, but dared not to touch. No one tried to befriend me because they simply 'knew' that they were not 'worthy' to be friends with such a monstrously gifted prodigy." she reached out and grasped Padme's hand in her own and gave it a comforting squeeze "So you cannot hide your loneliness from me, because I see the me from back then in your lonely eyes. So, Padme, please consider me your friend."

Padme seemed surprised when she heard Pyrrha's answer. She took a bit to digest it all, but finally nodded "Alright. I'll...I'll be your friend, Pyrrha."

Pyrrha and Padme hugged each other and Padme started shedding silent tears as she worried for the people of Naboo, and their suffering. Being held by Pyrrha helped a lot, and she felt safe enough to stop bottling up the pain inside her heart so much.

Among all of Death's wives and children, who could possibly see the pain that Padme had been hiding more clearly then Pyrrha? They would have noticed it eventually, but not as quickly as Pyrrha had.

Unbeknownst to Death, his choice to bring Pyrrha along as his companion in this adventure had been the correct one, and had allowed Padme and Pyrrha to forge a lasting and intimate friendship that started at this moment.

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While Pyrrha and Padme were privately becoming acquainted with each other and accepting their newfound friendship, Death had been waiting with Qui Gon, Obi-Wan, the fake Queen, the Supreme Chancellor, and Salem (once she returned from dropping Mace Windu and Darth Maul off at the Jedi Council) for word to come from the Jedi Council that they were ready to act.

"What do you think that the Jedi Council will do?" The fake Queen asked Death suddenly. Nabe had grown curious about Death due to his silence, but she understood how much her Queen respected this man, so she could not help being curious about is thoughts on this matter.

"As far as Naboo goes, I am reasonably sure that they will help with that matter, but as far as properly dealing with Palpatine goes, I figure that they will probably screw it up and he will escape, and I will have to clean up after their mess." Death admitted like it was common sense.

"Master Rose, why do you think that they'll screw it up?" Obi-Wan asked him, genuinely shocked that he thought that it would happen like that.

Death looked at Obi-Wan and chuckled "The people on the Jedi Council tend to be arrogant and assume that they understand the force better then anyone else. Mace Windu, for example, could have asked Salem about Darth Sidious and his abilities, but he instead asked her about me. His distrust towards me blinded him to an opportunity to get priceless information on his true enemy. That and he is overconfident that working together the Jedi Council can kill him. The problem, though, if that he wont stay dead."

"What? Wont stay dead?" Nabe asked with surprise.

Death nodded to Nabe, the fake Queen "Indeed. Darth Sidious's presumed dead master was working on creating with science s method to obtain immortality. The method he chose was cloning combined with a method of isolating his soul and transferring it into a cloned body following his death. As I understand it, Darth Plagueis achieved his ambition, but before he could likely implement his method of immortality for himself, he disappeared. It is likely that Sheev Palpatine murdered him and used that method of immortality for himself."

"Didn't you want to help the Jedi deal with this threat?" Obi-Wan asked him trying not to sound accusing towards him.

"I want to help the Republic." Death corrected Obi-Wan "and not just today either. I'm thinking about the future." he glanced towards the Supreme Chancellor "Chancellor, how many times have the Jedi been 'convinced' that the Sith had gone extinct only to be shocked every single time when they appear again?"

Chancellor Valorum was genuinely surprised by the question and seriously considered it "I can recall four times." he admitted.

"There were nine." Death answered before looking at Obi-Wan and Qui Gon "Those are just the ones I found records of. there's a good chance that more have been forgotten or never recorded in official records to begin with, and if such records still exist, they will likely only be found buried and hidden away in the Jedi Archives. Doing the same thing over and over again, continuously expecting a different result, is a kind of insanity, and it is unfortunately prevalent in the Jedi order. If I just held their hand and gave them all the answers without them doing anything, nothing will change and they'll only keep making the same mistakes over and over again and never learn from them."

"You can clean up the mess after they make this mistake?" The Supreme Chancellor asked Death.

"Easily." Death insisted to the chancellor, with a smug grin on his face "My understanding of souls is far greater then Sheev Palpatine. When I confront him, he will not be able to escape into a cloned body. He will die and he will stay dead. He may stir up a bit of trouble before I can reach him, and some people might be hurt, or even killed, which is something I regret a lot, but I will minimize the time he has to do so to minimize the casualties. In the long term, though, this exposes the Jedi as normal people who are capable of making mistakes, and will allow the Gray Jedi order time to establish itself and to challenge the Jedi's current supremacy within the Republic."

Qui Gon understood where Death was coming from, but still stepped out of the room to contact the Jedi Council, hoping to catch them before they confronted Darth Sidious. Unfortunately, the call went unanswered, since the fight was already happening.

As Death had predicted, the Jedi Council had confronted Sheev Palpatine without properly understanding his abilities. Everything had happened just as Death had calculated.