Chapter 23: Shaak spanks Kilea
Shaak Ti’s quarters were a serene contrast to the psychic storm they carried within them. Sunlight streamed through high windows, illuminating floating potted plants and shelves of rare, leather-bound texts. The Togruta Master herself was knelt by a low table, a steaming pot of tea between her hands, her long montrals casting elegant shadows. She looked up as they entered, her warm, knowing smile faltering only slightly at their bedraggled state.
“Master Luminara,” Shaak Ti greeted first, her voice a soft melody.“Knights. You look like you’ve been wrestling a rancor in a swamp.And lost.” Her eyes, sharp and perceptive, scanned them. They lingered on Ahsoka’s damp hair, on Bultar’s unnerving silence, on Barriss’s hand still pressed against her pocket.Luminara gave a curt nod. “We require counsel. An entity within the Temple has… manifested.”
“Over tea, then.” Shaak Ti gestured to cushions arranged on the floor.“Sit.Speak.”
The telling was fragmented. Ahsoka, fueled by a caffeine-and-rage buzz, described the café and Mara’s method.Rey jumped in with details of the Echo Chamber’s atmosphere. Barriss, her voice detached and analytical, outlined the ‘Confession Roulette’ and its result, glossing over the specifics with a clinical, “A private fantasy was enacted as disciplinary roleplay.” Bultar said nothing. She stared at the steam rising from a teacup she hadn’t touched, her face a hard mask of humiliation.Shaak Ti listened, pouring tea with deliberate, graceful movements. When they finished, the silence was filled only with the faint hum of Coruscant traffic far below.
“A Convocation-era remnant,” Shaak Ti mused, finally.“Kilea Vex. I’ve read the restricted entries.A troubled apprentice, imprisoned not for power, but for… proclivities. Her master’s solution was imprisonment, not rehabilitation. A failure of pedagogy.” She sipped her tea.“And this Mara… she sounds like a pedagogue of a different sort. One who believes experience, especially humiliating experience, is the only true teacher.”
“She’s dangerous,” Ahsoka insisted.“Undoubtedly,” Shaak Ti agreed. “But Kilea Vex is not, in the way you think.She’s not a Sith. She’s a spoiled child with a millennium’s worth of tantrum stored up. She feeds on spectacle, on transgression.You gave her a feast.”
Barriss shifted. “What do we do?”
Shaak Ti set her cup down with a soft click.“We correct the pedagogical failure. You said her freedom is tied to ‘willing acts of perversion’?”
A tense nod from Luminara.“Then we use that.We give her a controlled, consensual transgression. One that serves our purpose, not hers.” Her gaze settled on Barriss. “You have a recording of the event?”
Barriss paled.“I… yes, Master.”
“Good. That is our leverage.It proves willing participation. Now,” Shaak Ti’s eyes held a glint that was neither serene nor entirely kind, “we need a new scene. One where she is not the diner, but the dinner.” She looked at Barriss again. “Knight Offee, you possess a precise mind.And, I suspect, a latent flair for the dramatic. You will help me free her.”
Barriss’s geometric tattoos seemed to stand out sharper against her suddenly pallid skin.“How, Master?”
“By performing a fantasy. Not your own.One I will provide.A simple one.A Master disciplining a naughty Padawan. The oldest story in the galaxy.” Shaak Ti’s smile returned, warmer now, but with an edge.“The entity’s freedom is triggered by the act, not the participants. Our willing performance will open the door. Then,” her tone shifted, becoming as firm as durasteel, “I will show her the difference between a game that feeds darkness and a correction that aims for the light.”
Luminara looked deeply uncomfortable but said nothing.The younger Jedi exchanged nervous glances. This was escalating far beyond a prank war.
“Meet me in the Chamber at dusk,” Shaak Ti said, rising smoothly.“Bring the recording. And, Knight Swan?” Bultar finally looked up, her eyes haunted. “Witnessing this may provide a different perspective on your own… lesson.”
The Echo Chamber at dusk was a different beast. The holographic constellations burned with a deeper, hotter light, like embers in a dying fire. The shadows were longer, pooling around the bases of the obsidian pillars like black water.
Shaak Ti stood in the center, having changed into simple, dark training robes. Barriss stood before her, looking like she’d rather be anywhere else.“Play the recording, Knight Offee,” Shaak Ti instructed, her voice echoing softly.
Barriss activated her comm unit. The crisp, unmistakable sounds of Luminara’s hand meeting silk-covered flesh spilled into the Chamber, followed by Bultar’s ragged, suppressed breathing.In the dim light, Bultar flinched as if struck anew.
“Enough,” Shaak Ti said after a moment.The recording stopped.“Kilea Vex! A transaction is proposed!You are fond of spectacles. Here is the currency: a performance, willingly given.A fantasy of correction.Attend!”
The air thickened. The holographic stars seemed to dim, their light coalescing into the familiar, weary form of the ancient apprentice. Kilea looked more solid than before, her expression one of avid curiosity.“Another performance?How deliciously meta. You wish to free me to punish me? The irony is not lost.”
“It’s the price of admission,” Shaak Ti said, her voice calm.“Barriss. Assume the position.”
Barriss’s jaw tightened. She had agreed to this, logically understood the strategy, but the reality was a cold splash in the face.She was a Knight, not a playing piece. Yet she moved.Slowly, she went to Shaak Ti’s side. With a precision that spoke of deep discomfort, she bent over, placing her hands on her knees, presenting the back of her training trousers to the Master.Shaak Ti’s hand rested lightly on Barriss’s back. “The fantasy is simple,” she announced, for Kilea and for the record. “A Padawan has neglected her studies, has been arrogant in her sparring. She requires a firm, physical reminder of her place.” Her hand lifted, then fell in a sharp, authoritative smack against the fabric.
The sound was flat, percussive. Barriss jerked, a sharp intake of breath hissing through her teeth.It wasn’t the pain—it was negligible. It was the profound, exquisite embarrassment of the pose, the context, the audience.
Shaak Ti continued, a methodical, measured spanking.Each impact was a declaration. This was not the heated, surreal drama of Luminara and Bultar.This was clinical.Demonstrative. A dozen firm swats, delivered with a calm, almost detached efficiency.Barriss endured it in stiff silence, her face turned away, burning. She focused on the cool obsidian beneath her fingers, on the hum of the Chamber, on anything but the eyes she knew were on her.
As the last smack echoed, a tangible shift occurred in the Chamber.The force energy, which had been coiling around Kilea, suddenly snapped. She gasped, her form solidifying completely, her feet touching the actual floor for the first time in centuries. She looked down at her own hands, turning them over in wonder, a genuine, unguarded smile of triumph on her face.“Free,” she breathed.“Truly free. I can feel the air!”
“Temporarily,” Shaak Ti corrected, her voice cutting through Kilea’s joy. She straightened, leaving Barriss to quickly stand up, rubbing her stinging backside with a grimace. Shaak Ti took two steps toward Kilea, her presence seeming to expand, filling the space between the pillars. “And now, for your real lesson.”
Kilea’s smile turned sly.“Lesson?I’ve had millennia of lessons, Master. They never took.”
“Because they were lectures. This,” Shaak Ti said, “is a demonstration.”
Before Kilea could react, Shaak Ti moved. It was not a Force-assisted dash, just the pure, practiced speed of a senior Jedi Master. Her hand shot out, capturing Kilea’s wrist. A twist, a pull, and with a yelp of surprise, Kilea found herself stumbling forward, off-balance. Shaak Ti sat on a low, flat stump of rock that seemed to rise to meet her, and in one fluid, unstoppable motion, she guided Kilea face-down across her lap.“Hey!Unhand me! This wasn’t the bargain!” Kilea squawked, her composure shattered. She kicked, but Shaak Ti’s other arm came down across her back, pinning her with effortless strength.
“The bargain was your freedom,” Shaak Ti said, her voice now loud enough to fill the Chamber. It held no malice, only a relentless, steady certainty.“My bargain is your education. You feed on the humiliation of others, the blurring of lines, the dark little secret. You mistake embarrassment for power.” Her hand, open-palmed, came down on the back of Kilea’s simple robes with a CRACK that was entirely different from the sound on Barriss’s trousers. This was sharper, heavier, meant to be felt deeply.
Kilea yelped, a genuine sound of pain and outrage.
“That,” Shaak Ti said, spanking her again, same spot, same force, “is for using Knights as your toys.” Another swat, lower. “That is for twisting fantasy into a weapon.” Another. “And that is for believing a thousand years of darkness makes you wise.”
Kilea kicked and writhed.“Stop it!You sanctimonious witch! This is assault!”
“It’s a spanking,” Shaak Ti corrected coolly, her rhythm never breaking.“A very old-fashioned one.For very old-fashioned misbehavior. You are not a prisoner of the dark side, Kilea. You are a brat who never grew up.”
The lecture continued, punctuated by the sharp, consistent reports of her hand. Kilea’s protests dissolved into furious grunts, then into choked whimpers.The spectacle was gone. This was no game, no roleplay.It was raw, uncomfortable, and profoundly one-sided. After several minutes of this, Shaak Ti paused.
“Strip her to her underwear,” she instructed to the room.
Ahsoka and Rey exchanged a look, but it was Luminara who stepped forward, her face impassive. With quick, efficient motions, she helped a shaking, furious Kilea out of her outer robes, leaving her in a thin, ancient linen undershirt and shorts. Kilea’s face was flushed with a mix of rage and pain, her eyes shiny.
Shaak Ti pulled her back into position.The next volley on the thin linen was even more potent. Kilea gasped, her legs kicking in a useless, rhythmic pedaling motion.“Okay!Okay! I yield!Enough!”
“We are not at ‘enough,’” Shaak Ti said. Her hand hooked into the waistband of Kilea’s shorts. “These come down now.”
“NO!” Kilea’s plea was sharp, frantic, all ancient pride gone, replaced by the pure panic of a child facing an escalation.“Please, Master Shaak Ti, I’m sorry! I apologize! I’ll stop the games!”
“You’ll stop the dark games,” Shaak Ti clarified, not hesitating. She peeled the shorts down to Kilea’s knees, exposing pale skin already glowing a fierce, blotchy red. The sight seemed to hang in the air for a moment, a brutal honesty.Then her hand fell again, on bare flesh this time.
The sound was a flat, intimate slap.Kilea shrieked, her body arching. The pain was clearly on another level entirely. Shaak Ti proceeded, covering every inch of the punished area with a slow, deliberate intensity that spoke of a lesson meant to last. There was no pleasure here, only the stark, uncomfortable truth of consequence.
“You will play your games,” Shaak Ti said, her voice ringing clear, “without the dark side.Without feeding on shame.Without coercion. You will find joy in the light, messy and embarrassing as it may be, or you will not play at all. Do you understand?”
Between shuddering sobs, Kilea managed a weak, “Yes! Yes, I understand!”
Shaak Ti delivered a final, fierce volley, a punctuating statement.Then she stopped. She gently pulled Kilea’s shorts back up over the blazing skin and helped the weeping, limp woman to her feet. Kilea stood unsteadily, one hand immediately flying back to rub her tortured bottom, her face buried in her other arm.
“Go stand in the corner by that pillar,” Shaak Ti instructed, her voice returning to its normal melodic tone.“Face the wall. Think about the difference between what you wanted and what you needed.”
Sniffling, utterly broken of her ancient, sly demeanor, Kilea shuffled to the corner, her shoulders hunched, a portrait of defeated, childish misery.
Shaak Ti stood, adjusting her robes.She looked at the others.Luminara’s expression was thoughtful. Barriss looked shaken but resolute.Ahsoka and Rey were wide-eyed. Bultar was staring at Kilea in the corner, her own shame seeming to reflect differently in the light of this far more severe, far less ambiguous correction.
“The temple’s plumbing is cleaned, for now,” Shaak Ti said quietly.“She will behave.And she may even be useful. But remember,” her gaze swept over them, “your Mara understands this same principle.The application of humiliation as a tool. The difference is intention.Hers is… unclear. Ours, today, was clear.”
She nodded toward the exit, the lesson concluded. As they filed out, the last thing they heard was the faint, hiccupping cry of a centuries-old apprentice, standing alone in a corner, finally learning what it meant to be truly chastised.
The silence in the corridor outside the Echo Chamber was brittle, broken only by the soft shuffle of boots on polished stone. The group dispersed without a word, the weight of what they’d witnessed settling on each of them differently. Luminara glided away with a final, unreadable glance, while Bultar vanished down a side passage, her posture rigid. Rey mumbled something about checking on a droid and hurried off.
Barriss walked, the sharp, hot memory of the spanking tingling with every step. It was a dull, persistent echo compared to the psychic storm of the Chamber, but it was a tangible, private proof of her participation. She needed to see it, to assess the damage as she would a training injury. She turned toward the quieter ‘freshers near the archives, seeking the cool, anonymous solitude of white tile and running water.
Inside, the air was still and antiseptic. She entered a stall, locked the door, and leaned her forehead against the cool partition. With a slow exhale, she gathered the soft, dark blue fabric of her dress in her hands, lifting it up and over her back. She craned her neck, looking over her shoulder.
The sight in the full-length mirror on the stall door made her cheeks burn. The pale lime green skin of her buttocks was now patterned with a clear, rosy red blush, the imprint of Shaak Ti’s hand evident in the sharper color at the crest of each cheek. It was not the brutal map of violence that Kilea likely bore, but a vivid, unmistakable record of a lesson delivered and received. She stared, a strange cocktail of shame and a weird, academic fascination churning in her gut.
The main door to the ‘fresher hissed open. Barriss froze, the dress still held aloft. She moved too slowly, fumbling the fabric as footsteps approached. The blue dress fell back into place just as Ahsoka Tano rounded the corner of the stalls, her blue eyes bright and curious.
Ahsoka stopped. Her gaze darted from Barriss’s flushed face to the now-smooth line of her dress, then back up. A slow, smug grin spread across her features. “Hey, Barriss,” she said, her voice singsong with faux innocence. “Hiding from the parenting?”
“I was just… freshening up,” Barriss said, her tone drier than the Tatooine wastes.
“Uh-huh.” Ahsoka strode forward, her movements predatory and playful. Before Barriss could protest, Ahsoka wrapped her in a tight, friendly hug. “You were so brave in there. Taking one for the team. Really mature.”
“Thank you,” Barriss muttered into her shoulder, stiff.
Ahsoka’s hands, resting on Barriss’s back, began to wander. One slid slowly, deliberately, around Barriss’s hip, then crept toward the small of her back. Barriss stiffened further but, with a resigned sigh, shyly submitted. She felt the cool air as Ahsoka gathered the back of her dark blue dress and lifted it.
A low whistle escaped Ahsoka’s lips. “Wow. Shaak Ti doesn’t mess around, does she? Even for a ‘performance.’ That’s some serious blush you’ve got going on. It’s like a sunset on Mirial.”
“Your descriptive talents are noted,” Barriss said, her face flaming.
“Did it hurt?” Ahsoka asked, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper.
“It was… stinging. More surprising than anything.”
“And the kneeling-in-front-of-everyone part? The whole ‘assume the position’ bit? C’mon, details.”
Barriss closed her eyes. “It was strategically necessary. And profoundly mortifying. Are you satisfied?”
“Almost.” Ahsoka released the hug and, to Barriss’s horror, smoothly sank into a crouch in front of her. She was now eye-level with Barriss’s punished backside. “I just need a closer look for my report. For the, uh, historical archives.”
“Ahsoka, don’t you dare—”
But Ahsoka already dared. She reached out a single blue finger and gently prodded the reddest part of Barriss’s left cheek. Barriss jumped. “Sore here?” Ahsoka asked, her voice full of faux clinical concern.
“Yes.”
The finger moved an inch. “What about here?”
“Ahsoka!”
“Or here?” This time, Ahsoka’s whole hand gripped the curve, giving a gentle, assessing squeeze.
That was the limit. The analytical detachment shattered, replaced by the sheer, squirming embarrassment of having her best friend kneel and physically inspect her spanked bottom. With a sharp gasp, Barriss yanked her dress down, the fabric snapping back into place with a decisive swish. She stumbled back a step, almost tripping over the toilet.
Ahsoka looked up from her crouch, her expression one of comical, sulky disappointment. “Aw, come on! I was diagnosing!”
“Your diagnosis is complete,” Barriss said, straightening her dress with sharp, furious tugs. “The patient is deeply embarrassed and wishes to be left alone with her dignity, or what’s left of it.”
Ahsoka rose, grinning. “Okay, okay. But you have to admit, it’s kind of funny. In a really, really weird way.” She bumped Barriss’s shoulder with her own. “You’re officially in the club now. The ‘Got Spanked by a Council Member for a Strategic Reason’ club. Membership is, like, super exclusive.”
Barriss couldn’t help it. A tiny, breathless laugh escaped her, puncturing the tension. “It’s a club I never aspired to join.”
“None of us do,” Ahsoka said, her grin softening. “It just finds you. Like mold.” She leaned against the stall door. “So. What now? Kilea’s been… de-bratified. Mara’s still out there. Charlie’s still… Charlie. And Bultar looks like she’s going to spontaneously combust.”
And Bultar looks like she’s going to spontaneously combust.”
“Which is exactly why we need a reset,” Barriss said, finally smoothing her dress down with finality. The sting in her backside was a persistent, low-grade hum, a physical anchor for the chaotic whirl in her mind. She met Ahsoka’s gaze in the mirror, her own dark eyes glinting with a familiar, calculated spark. It was the look she got when deconstructing a faulty lightsaber circuit or planning a particularly elegant prank. “All this… psychological theater and ancient ghosts. It’s oppressive. We’re thinking in circles.”
Ahsoka tilted her head, montrals swaying. “What are you thinking, Offee?”
“I’m thinking we need something simple. Clean. A classic,” Barriss said, a slow smile touching her lips. It wasn’t her serene mask; this was sharper, more alive. “Something that reminds us what we actually control. The urge for petty, consequence-free chaos is a biological imperative after days like this.”
“Okay, now you’re speaking my language.” Ahsoka grinned, bouncing slightly on the balls of her feet. “Spill.”
Barriss turned, leaning against the sink. “We find a suitably cocky Padawan. One who’s been strutting around thinking they’re the next Grand Master.