The Representatives of the Republic Part 3

Yuki excitedly led the tour, heading from the Puddle Jumper docks to the gate room, where they found Penny with C-3PO, her father and Maria Calivera. Penny's face brightened and she smiled "Welcome back husband Death." she jogged over and hugged him.

Death returned the hug and smiled "Good evening, Penny."

Penny let go of Death and looked at Padme, Qui-Gon and Jar Jar "Sal-u-tations. My name is Penny Polendina." she greeted them in her traditionally cheerful manner.

"Penny is one of the five strongest people here." Death explained to their guests "Don't let appearances be deceiving. She is very strong."

"I am combat ready" Penny said cheerfully.

"She doesn't seem like the warrior type. No offense meant. I'm no warrior myself" Padme insisted.

"In the world I come from, we do a lot of research related to the soul." Death reminded Padme "In Penny's case, her 'father' split off a piece of his soul and attached it to a machine, giving Penny life. We later used a secret method to transfer her soul into a human body that had been created for her. As a machine with a soul, she grew well beyond her original programming, capable of forming friendships and even falling in love like any born human. It was only natural to help her become truly human. She should not have been treated as a mere weapon when she had a soul and feelings." he looked at Qui Gon again "In many area's, leaving aside the Lantean technology that we've been reproducing, the technology of this Galaxy is superior to ours. After all, our world didn't even reach space for the first time until 11 years ago, and we have only had two species, humans and faunus, to develop our technology. And it has been three years since we reverse engineered Lantean tech sufficiently to send an unmanned ship into space for the first time. When it comes to the study of the soul, though, I can confidently say that we have got you beat."

"Papa, can I show them the stargate?" Yuki asked.

Death nodded to his daughter and looked at the circular device in the center of the room. "Go for it, honey"

Yuki grinned excitedly and headed over to a terminal with a bunch of symbols on it and Death and the others followed her.

"This is called a D.H.D. or Dial Home Device. Each of these symbols is a Constellation that can be seen from Tatooine." Yuki explained and started pushing buttons, causing the stargate to begin responding and spinning to select the symbols Yuki had selected from the terminal "If there was another stargate in this Galaxy, we could connect to it if we calculated the celestial coordinates and entered the correct combination of constellations. Within this galaxy it would only require seven shevrons, but since home is so much further away, it requires more." Yuki finished explained as she pressed the tenth and final button on the dial home device."

Jar jar started wandering towards the stargate, and though Death wasn't a fan of the annoying guy, he wasn't going to watch the idiot get himself killed either "You do not want to get too close to that right now." he said to Jar Jar, using force persuade.

"What would happen if one was too close when it opened?" Qui Gon asked.

"The Star Gate has a large open area in front of it because when it opens a stable wormhole, the event horizon has a momentary backlash, a bit like a hiccup. Only anything caught within that hiccup will be vaporized." Yuki explained sagely "Aaaaannnd tenth chevron locked in place."

Energy formed within the Star Gate, and then the backlash they mentioned had lashed outward for a bit before the Star Gate stabilized. Death looked at Pietro "Dr. Polendina, please download any letters or information being sent through from Atlantis, then sent the letters, messages and reports from the last week to them."

Pietro nodded "So the usual. Got it."

Death nodded to Pietro and looked at his daughter Yuki "Lets bring them to meet Anakin. Their training for the day should be finished soon, so he will probably be working on his pod racer shortly."

"Okay daddy" Yuki agreed cheerfully and turned to lead the group out of the Gate/Control Room. On the way out Qui-Gon was still looking back towards the Stargate with a complicated expression on his face.

"What material was that stargate made out of?" Qui-Gon asked Death once they had walked for a bit "It didn't seem to be any material that I could recognize."

"Naquadah." Death answered with a smirk "That's what the Lanteans call it, at least. It doesn't occur naturally anywhere in this universe as far as I know. We had to use a secret method to make it synthetically. Not going to share that method though, considering how dangerous the material can be."

"Oh? And what is the most dangerous item you can make with it?" Qui-Gon asked with curiosity.

"A Zero-Point Module requires just a small amount of naquadah to make, and if harnessed in a completely destructive manner could wipe up a large chunk of a galaxy." Death answered simply "Z.P.M.'s are power sources. Presently we have four of them installed to maintain El Dorado's power here. Hypothetically if they were all detonated with proper intent to destroy this Galaxy, the destruction would indeed be sufficient to completely erase it. Even clumsily detonated, a ZPM could easily wipe out an entire solar system from existence, star and all."

"I guess I can understand your hesitance to share such a material then." Qui-Gon admitted with a frown.

Frankly, Death knew that even if they could create naquadah, that they were probably still tens of thousands of years away at the very least away from making anything horrible with it, but he still decided it was better just to not share it at all. He wasn't going to stay in this universe forever to babysit it, after all. He would not be around to fix any messes that may have come from development of naquadah all those thousands of years from now.

They chatted as they walked together and soon came upon a woman and two children. Death, of course, knew the small but busty beauty with multicolored hair, but Qui-Gon seemed a bit surprised to see someone with hair that was half pink and half brown, with mirroring-colored eyes. Additionally, the little girl was tiny, one could easily assume that little Iris was no older then 5 given her physique, if she wasn't alongside her mother, Neo.

Little Iris had the same hair and eyes as her mother, and was a little bundle of cuteness. She was nearly eight years old and had taken it upon herself to befriend Anakin when he came here, so Death was not surprised to see her and Neo with Anakin.

"Daddy!" Iris rushed over and Death knelt to hug another of his daughters "Hello Iris," He greeted her and picked her up as he stood up "Qui-Gon, Neo here is my wife and one of the mightiest warriors in our world." he then winked at Neo.

Neo nodded and her eyes began leaking out pink and brown flames as she lifted up off the floor about a foot, showing off a bit by creating energy balls of various elemental magics. In the past she just created green flames from her eyes, as he natural affinity was for earth and plant magic, but in the years since Death had used his system to give her all the elements he had, and she could make the fire any color that she wanted, so she generally made them match her eyes.

"Neo can command all the elements of nature, and that is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to her abilities." Death boasted to Qui-Gon "I can also command the elements, but I do not have a maiden state like she does."

"Daddy's physique is incredible, though. Even without a Maiden State, Daddy is the strongest." Iris insisted "Mommy would not have gotten as strong as she is without daddy either. Daddy even gave mommy the ability to contract with Seiryu."

"Seiryu?" Qui-Gon asked.

"Qui-Gon, Jar Jar, and Padme, as I said, these are my wife Neopolitan, and our daughter Iris, and the boy is actually who I wanted to introduce you too." Death then looked at the boy "Anakin Skywalker, this is Jedi Master Qui-Gon." he looked back at Qui-Gon "This boy, Anakin, is actually what brought me to Tatooine, since I foresaw the treatment he would get from the Jedi Council if you found him. They would say he was too old and had too much fear, and they would refuse to let him be trained. As a result, he would end up under the thumb of Palpatine and would be slowly turned to the Dark Side over time. Many would have died at his hands, but in his final moments he would have turned back to the light and brought balance to the force, as per the prophesy. Rather then letting Palpatine corrupt him, I chose to save him before you could and train him in the way of the force. In short, I decided to bring balance to the force by having him trained to take over and lead a new order of Gray Jedi in this Galaxy. It seems a much more preferential way to bring balance to the force, don't you think?"

"Greetings Master Jedi" Anakin greeted Qui-Gon enthusiastically.

"Anakin, want to show Jedi Master Qui-Gon the pod racer you will be using at the Boonta Eve Pod Race?" Death suggested to Anakin "I invited them to come watch your race."

Anakin nodded to Death "Yes sir, Master Death."

Anakin led the group the rest of the way to the workroom where Anakin had his pod racer at. It looked much more advanced then the one Death had seen in the movies, since Death had provided Lantean technology to Anakin, so it was definitely the uncontested most advanced pod racer in the Galaxy, though of course Anakin's opponents would not know that since they had never seen in in action before.

Another woman was already in the room. She had orange hair with a bit of teal in her bangs, and a cat-like tail with orange fur that matched her hair. She wore overalls since she'd been assisting Anakin on the Pod Racer and didn't want to get her stylish clothes covered in grease. Even in overalls, though, Neon Katt was clearly a beautiful woman.

"Hello Neon." Death greeted her and set down Iris back on the ground, as he had carried her the rest of the way to here. She had her hair down today, and Death certainly appreciated seeing that. Though he loved her regardless of how she had her hair, he couldn't help but have a slight preference for when she had it down like this.

Neon rolled over on her roller skates and threw her arms around Death and kissed him, with her tail swishing back and forth excitedly.

Death returned the embrace and the kiss for a couple seconds before catching Neon by her tail and beginning to pet it.

Neon yelped "Naughty" she then giggled and they both released each other.

Death looked at his guests "And this is my wife, Neon Katt. She is of a species in my world called Faunus. Though it is more accurate to call them a human sub-species. Originally, there were only humans in the world, but then an E.L.E. happened and humanity was basically wiped out. When humanity made a resurgence, the Faunus were there as well. I have a theory on what happened, but it doesn't matter."

"E.L.E.?" Padme asked with confusion.

"Extinction Level Event." Death answered to Padme "When you are confined to one little world, things like that are possible, as you can imagine. The disaster literally wiped out every human on the planet except for one, transforming their bodies into a substance called 'Dust' which allows one to use it to manipulate the elements, though only within our world. The 'Dust' loses it's power outside of our world. No one knows the reason for this phenomenon. Eventually some of this 'Dust' transformed back into humans again, as well as the Faunus."

"You said one human survived? How do you know that?" Padme asked.

Death then wrapped one arm around Salem "Because the lone survivor of humanity from that E.L.E. is right here. Salem here bore a curse of Immortality. As you can imagine, tens of thousands of years of isolation drove her a bit insane and she was determined to destroy the world in the hopes that by doing so she could finally die for real. I fought her, but rather then sealing her away, I decided to reincarnate her and give her a happy second life, then help her to break the curse on her own. Thanks to returning to a baby state, she thankfully regained her innocence and by now she is well on her way to breaking her curse." he chuckled.

"Immortality is a Curse?" Padme asked "Well, I guess tens of thousands of years of isolation does sound difficult."

"Unfortunately, I could not appear to help Salem before she had gone nuts in the first place, so forced reincarnation seemed the best way to handle it." Death insisted to Padme "Sometimes Death isn't the best solution to handle a situation. I could have technically killed little Anakin because of what he might do in the future, but like Salem's past, Ani's future wasn't completely his fault. If the Jedi had not neglected him, he would not have been vulnerable to being targeted and influenced by Sheev Palpatine over time. So I am doing all that I can to help them both."

Salem looked at Death reverently with a blush on her cheeks.

Padme looked at Salem with surprise "How did she get this curse of immortality?"

"Well, I'm not certain of all the details, but I suspect that it was something similar to Anakin's situation. I don't have records from that era, but I suspect that there was a prophecy of some kind related to Salem possibly causing the destruction of humanity. A prophecy like this would explain why her father kept her locked away from the world and never let her out, protecting her while trying to prevent the prophesy from becoming a reality through isolating her for her whole life." Death guessed looking towards Padme "Unfortunately, a young 'hero' named Ozma heard of Salem's plight, being locked in a tower, and he came to rescue her, in the name of justice. As you can probably imagine, Salem, who was a girl not much older then you at the time, became dependent upon that young man that rescued her, but within a few months he contracted a common illness and passed away, leaving her in dreadful shape. She sought a means to resurrect him, only for it to fail, and to end up making herself immortal, unable to even be reunited with Ozma even in death. Her attempt at resurrecting Ozma also had the consequence of triggering the E.L.E. Presumably her fathers attempt at preventing the prophecy I theorize may have existed ended up being the cause that actually made the prophecy come to pass."

Padme sighed and nodded in understanding. She was sure that there was more to it that Death had not said, but he said enough to make her understand why he apparently reincarnated Salem.

"The Jedi likely would have done something similar if they could. In fact, they did something similar in the past with Revan" Qui-Gon recalled.

Anakin showed off his pod racer and told everyone how great it was, then they went ahead and got the remaining part that Qui-Gon needed and Death brought them back to the puddle jumper with it to take them back to the Queen's ship, agreeing to meet them for the Boonta Eve Pod Race, after which they would deal with Darth Maul.

Death knew that he had given Qui-Gon a lot to think about by explaining to him about what would have happened with Anakin and what did happen to Salem.

Finally, Death, Pyrrha, Salem, Jar Jar, Padme and Qui Gon were on their way back to the ship, and Death knew he was about to meet Obi-Wan Kenobi, which he actually looked forward too.