Title: Growing Pains
Author: Durhelediel and Layren
Category: Action/Adventure/Drama
Rating: PG-13
Archive: Please ask us first!
Summary: When young Qui-Gon thinks that everyone has forgotten his birthday, he runs away from the Temple and finds more trouble...and an unlikely new friendship.
Disclaimer: All recognizable Star Wars characters belong to George Lucas and Lucasfilm, Ltd. We just take them out to play with them once in a while.
Note from authors: Original characters from us are ours and if anyone wants to borrow them, please write an email specifying which one and why. We will let you know. Thank you.
Dedication: To Charmisjess. Thanks for the rpg that this came from! It took on a life of it's own!! Hope it turned out as good as the rpg! Thanks also to Marnie Goodbody, for the name Yan as Dooku's first name.
The Endurance Series: Growing Pains (the prequel)
Chapter One:
Qui-Gon snored gently. One of his arms was flopped over his eyes and the other was hanging off a sleep-couch that was too short for his lanky frame. His mind was totally oblivious to everything except sleeping in as late as possible. He stirred briefly before turning over on his other side, still snoring gently, sound asleep.
Jedi Master Yan Dooku tugged on his robe and strolled into his padawan's room, expecting him to be awake and ready for their meeting with the Council. To his surprise, Qui-Gon was still sleeping soundly.Dooku sighed and tried to be patient with his high-strung padawan. Reaching over, he shook Qui-Gon much more gently than he wanted to. "Qui-Gon, wake up!"
Qui-Gon mumbled in his sleep, "Just a few more minutes, Master," before turning over and loudly snoring again.
Dooku shook him harder and let his anger bleed into his voice. "NOW!"
With a start, Qui-Gon woke up and blinked sleepily at his master. "Huh?"
In a stressed tone, Dooku said, "We have a Council meeting in two minutes. Why are you not up and dressed?"
Qui-Gon stared uncomprehendingly at his master. "A what?"
Dooku counted to ten in his head and then repeated, "Why are you not up and dressed? We have a Council meeting today. Remember? Master Yoda contacted me last night about it."
Qui-Gon stared for a few more seconds and then it finally clicked in his brain what his master was saying to him. Oh no. He scrambled out of bed and tried to find his clothes that he put on the edge of his bed the night before, only to find he'd kicked them off in his sleep.
Dooku left his padawan alone to get dressed and stood in their adjoining living area, the only outward sign of his impatience his foot tapping on the floor.
Qui-Gon came out of his room, pulling on his boots and hopping on one foot to try to make them come up all the way. He winced as his shoes pinched his toes. "Master, I think I need new boots again."
Dooku lifted an eyebrow. "I told you whenever you needed things to let me know before they became a problem."
Qui-Gon looked away at that. He mumbled. "Yes Master."
Checking the chrono on the wall, Dooku sighed. "If we hurry, we can still make it."
Qui-Gon didn't reply, but instead followed his master out the door at a jog to hurry toward the Council chambers.
As they neared the open doors, Yoda's voice called out, "Late again are you, Master Dooku. This time what excuse have you?"
Qui-Gon's face flushed, waiting for his master's reply as he stood a pace behind his master, which was appropriate for a Jedi padawan.
Dooku bowed in front of the Council to show respect, hiding his irritation. "My padawan forgot the time, Masters. What is it that you need to see us for?"
Qui-Gon's cheeks burned even more as he stood behind his master. He looked down at the floor.
Master Koth did not wait for preliminaries but launched directly into the matter. "Master Dooku. Your actions during the last mission were entirely inappropriate. Do you have any excuse for how you handled the Chieslen incident? You directly countermanded orders and defied authority that said not to interfere."
Dooku flared at that statement. "How could I not interfere when I was faced with that suffering and feeling it all around me?"
Now Master W'go jumped on Dooku, though using his apprentice as a mean to do so. "Padawan Jinn, how do you feel your master acted, especially by countermining Council orders?"
Qui-Gon looked up in surprise. The Council rarely acknowledged he was even there, let alone asked for his opinion. He frowned. "With all due respect, Masters, my master did the best possible job he could. Thousands of lives would have been destroyed had my master not acted. In my opinion, his actions were justified. He saved thousands of lives instead of just one."
Dooku stared at his padawan in surprise. Since being assigned to him after his previous master's death, Qui-Gon rarely stood by his decisions. The Council was just as shocked as Dooku.
Yoda observed Qui-Gon quietly as Master Koth blustered. "You...how do you, a fourteen-year-old apprentice know anything of this situation?" He finally said.
Qui-Gon arched a brow. "Fifteen. I know because I was there, Master Koth. With all due respect to this assembly, you weren't."
Dooku sent his padawan a warning to be careful through their bond but the message was mixed with admiration and gratitude. Dooku turned to Master Koth, trying to get his attentions away from his apprentice. "I did what any Jedi with feelings would have, Masters. If you had been there, you would have done the same. I know our mandates state for us to not follow emotion but if we become senseless beings, then we have lost what it is to be Jedi."
Master Koth narrowed his gaze darkly at Dooku and at the apprentice standing just behind him. "You were under strict orders to protect the royal heir. Now he is dead at your hands. What excuse do you have for this?"
Dooku knew he'd catch their anger for this. "Prince Janhu tried to kill me and also tried to kill countless innocents. When he tried to capture Qui- Gon it became personal. It was for protection that I finally agreed to duel with him. I did not know at the time that he was not as good as he claimed."
Qui-Gon hid a snicker behind his hand at that last part. The prince couldn't fight at all, especially compared to his master, but since he was held hostage at the time, he didn't have much of a say in the matter.
Yoda flicked an ear and turned to his colleagues. "With the master and padawan alone I must speak."
Qui-Gon arched a brow in surprise. He would be included? He bowed his head and held his tongue.
Once all the Council members had filed out, Yoda glanced at Qui-Gon. "Careful with your words you must be. Enemies with Jedi you can make."
Qui-Gon kneeled before the small Jedi Master. "Master I don't understand...he asked for my opinion...and now when I told the truth I'm being questioned for it?"
"Questioned you are not," Yoda clarified. "Prudent it is to monitor truth at times. Master Dooku know this he should."
Qui-Gon narrowed his gaze at that and furrowed his brow. "You mean sometimes you'll hide the truth?" He shook his head. "I don't understand how that could possibly be justified."
"Hide not the truth," Yoda was beginning to sound exasperated. "Proper timing truth waits on. Learn this in time you will."
Qui-Gon stared at the floor. "Yes, Master Yoda."
Yoda turned to Dooku. "Enemies you have. This you know. Why aggravate you Master Koth?"
Master Dooku looked at Yoda evenly. "I wasn't trying to aggravate him, my master. I merely answered what he asked. Maybe he's the one who needs some adjustment."
Yoda allowed a small smile to cross his thin lips briefly. "Understand I do, Master Dooku. Master Koth my concern is not. Your actions, serious are they. Your reasoning question I do not. Worried about influencing young Jinn I do."
Master Dooku sighed and crossed his arms over his chest. "My padawan may pick up some of my methods, that is true. But it is entirely possible that he will disagree with me for the rest of his apprenticeship, then when he is a master he can make his own decisions. It is too early to tell now, how things will go in the future."
Yoda nodded at this. "Still early it is. Point made, Master Dooku. "
Qui-Gon frowned, irritated at being talked about like he was not there. "Masters, with all due respect I'd appreciate it if you talked to me and not about me."
Yoda sighed and Master Dooku glared at his padawan, all earlier feelings of warmth gone. "This is what Master Yoda means by telling you to be silent, Qui-Gon," he snapped. "Sometimes your comments are not necessary."
Qui-Gon's gaze darkened at the sharp rebuke but he didn't reply, dropping his gaze to the floor. He winced a little and tried to move his pinched toes around in his boots.
Yoda waved them away in dismissal. "Much to talk about have you. Go now."
Dooku, without another word, turned and strode back out of the room, his thoughts miles away. Qui-Gon stood again and bowed to Master Yoda. He frowned when his master did not and hurried to catch up to Dooku's long strides. A stray thought entered his mind that he hoped his master had not forgotten his birthday with all this excitement from the Council.
Dooku finally spoke as he paused outside of the meditation room. "I want you to spend the next several hours meditating on how to not open your mouth with every glib comment and why it is important for you not to do so. When you think you have adequate reasoning, alert me through our bond and I will come get you."
Qui-Gon looked up at the instruction. "But, Master.it's time for lunch."
Dooku just gave him a look.
Qui-Gon sighed heavily, irritated at being punished for something he didn't think he did wrong. Without another word he headed into the meditation room.
Dooku let himself smile as the door closed behind his apprentice. Qui-Gon evidently thought he had forgotten his birthday. This little tirade with the Council gave him ample excuse to get his surprise birthday party set up. Knowing Qui-Gon, he'd be in the meditation room for a while, trying to curb his thoughts. With lots of things to finish planning, Dooku hurried off.
Qui-Gon sighed heavily as he sat in the meditation room in meditation posture. The room was completely empty except for himself. He didn't feel like meditating. The longer he sat there, the more he felt like he was being unjustly punished. His thoughts turned to how he had been treated by Master Dooku. His master usually didn't get so mad so quickly and then punish him right away. Why did things like this have to happen on the one day that was supposed to be a happy day? Did Master Dooku even remember today was his birthday? Frowning at the injustice of it, he crossed his arms.
Qui-Gon heaved a sigh wondering what else his master would do to him for being late to the Council meeting.
Happy birthday Qui, he thought sarcastically to himself. The council didn't even acknowledge it when he'd corrected them on his age.
The more he sat there, thinking of how unfair it all was, the more upset he got. Finally, after staying in the meditation room for about thirty minutes, he couldn't take it anymore. Closing down his side of the bond, he stood and peered around the door to see if anyone was there. Seeing no one, he raced down the halls toward the front hall.
Qui-Gon stopped at the exit to the Jedi temple and bit his lip. His master would be absolutely furious to find him not meditating but his resolve hardened as he remembered why he was supposed to meditate in the first place. He pulled open the door and headed out.
A storm was brewing beyond the spires of Coruscant. What a day this was turning out to be. Storms on Coruscant were always vicious, offering hardly any protection from its onslaught. Qui-Gon hurried away from the Temple as much to get away from the unfairness as to run away from the storm headed his way. He found shelter half an hour later near a cantina practically buried in building rubble. It was appropriately named "The Shack". To his dismay, though, a swoop biker gang appeared, bearing down on The Shack-and his position-swiftly.
He crawled beneath an awning, hoping to find shelter without causing attention to himself. He crouched low behind a pile of shipping crates and waited. It was when he dropped his hand to his waist for his lightsaber that he realized with a gasp he didn't have it. He'd taken it off when he'd sat down in the meditation room.
Qui-Gon could have kicked himself. That was the most stupid thing he could have done, especially after he had left all by himself with no one knowing where he was. He needed protection...but he was not going back inside the Temple for it. Someone would see him and he'd be stuck there.
Qui-Gon bit his lip as he crouched behind the shipping crates, hoping they wouldn't notice him. He rebuked himself sharply for leaving his weapon on the meditation room floor. Master Dooku is gonna kill me...
The leader of the swoop gang held up his hand, his long dreadlocks swinging over his face. "Hold up, man," he barked at his six followers. "What've we got here, hiding in the shadows? You a runaway, kid?"
Qui-Gon narrowed his gaze darkly. "No. I just dropped something. I think I'll go back now."
The leader scowled, showing off his missing teeth. With a barely seen flick of a finger, the other bikes looped around, blocking Qui-Gon's escape. "What's your hurry, man? Come join us inside. Maybe you'll find what it is you're looking for in there." Several of the cronies laughed at this.
Qui-Gon bit his lip, worried, but he tried not to show it. He reached out to the Force. "You don't need me inside. I can go."
For a moment, the swoop leader looked as if he were about to tell him to go, then his eyes narrowed. "Hey, yous guys! We got a Jedi kid here!" He frowned at Qui-Gon. "I'm not that stupid man. You shouldn't've done that."
Qui-Gon bit his lip again and decided to try to make a run for it. He ran at the nearest man blocking his exit, hoping to startle the swoop riders enough to let him go.
Unfortunately for him, these swoop riders were not completely dumb nor were they slow. While he was attacking the two nearest his exit, two others bore down on him, kicking him in the back and knocking him down to the ground.
Qui-Gon gasped as he was knocked down hard to the ground, the breath driven from his lungs. The asphalt beneath him cut his palms and he briefly pondered the idea of calling to his master for help then decided against it
The swoop leader laughed as his quarry pushed himself painfully back to his knees. "How 'bout you go inside with us now, Jedi? We's got business to settle."
Qui-Gon glared. "Make me." He pushed himself up to his feet and brushed the asphalt off of his torn pants.
Instead of getting angry, the swoop leader only laughed again. Tilting his head in another invisible signal, three of his followers placed their swoops in idle and jumped on top of the Jedi.
Qui-Gon gasped, the breath knocked from him a second time, and he struggled to get out from under them, kicking and punching whatever he could. He reached out to the Force and shoved at the three men on top of him.
The leader merely watched calmly as the three who jumped Qui-Gon were hurtled through the air by an invisible fist. Sighing in boredom, he turned his wrist to the right to signal to the lone woman of the group, who had snuck up behind Qui-Gon with a loaded vial, to inject him. Grinning, showing more missing teeth than the leader, the woman obeyed.
Qui-Gon struggled back to his feet and sucked in a breath as he was pricked in the exposed part of his neck. Within seconds a lightheaded feeling stole over him and he fell to the ground, unable to move.
*MASTER!*
The six swoop gang members bent over him and picked him up, carrying their prize into their hideout, knowing that he could do no damage now.
Author: Durhelediel and Layren
Category: Action/Adventure/Drama
Rating: PG-13
Archive: Please ask us first!
Summary: When young Qui-Gon thinks that everyone has forgotten his birthday, he runs away from the Temple and finds more trouble...and an unlikely new friendship.
Disclaimer: All recognizable Star Wars characters belong to George Lucas and Lucasfilm, Ltd. We just take them out to play with them once in a while.
Note from authors: Original characters from us are ours and if anyone wants to borrow them, please write an email specifying which one and why. We will let you know. Thank you.
Dedication: To Charmisjess. Thanks for the rpg that this came from! It took on a life of it's own!! Hope it turned out as good as the rpg! Thanks also to Marnie Goodbody, for the name Yan as Dooku's first name.
The Endurance Series: Growing Pains (the prequel)
Chapter One:
Qui-Gon snored gently. One of his arms was flopped over his eyes and the other was hanging off a sleep-couch that was too short for his lanky frame. His mind was totally oblivious to everything except sleeping in as late as possible. He stirred briefly before turning over on his other side, still snoring gently, sound asleep.
Jedi Master Yan Dooku tugged on his robe and strolled into his padawan's room, expecting him to be awake and ready for their meeting with the Council. To his surprise, Qui-Gon was still sleeping soundly.Dooku sighed and tried to be patient with his high-strung padawan. Reaching over, he shook Qui-Gon much more gently than he wanted to. "Qui-Gon, wake up!"
Qui-Gon mumbled in his sleep, "Just a few more minutes, Master," before turning over and loudly snoring again.
Dooku shook him harder and let his anger bleed into his voice. "NOW!"
With a start, Qui-Gon woke up and blinked sleepily at his master. "Huh?"
In a stressed tone, Dooku said, "We have a Council meeting in two minutes. Why are you not up and dressed?"
Qui-Gon stared uncomprehendingly at his master. "A what?"
Dooku counted to ten in his head and then repeated, "Why are you not up and dressed? We have a Council meeting today. Remember? Master Yoda contacted me last night about it."
Qui-Gon stared for a few more seconds and then it finally clicked in his brain what his master was saying to him. Oh no. He scrambled out of bed and tried to find his clothes that he put on the edge of his bed the night before, only to find he'd kicked them off in his sleep.
Dooku left his padawan alone to get dressed and stood in their adjoining living area, the only outward sign of his impatience his foot tapping on the floor.
Qui-Gon came out of his room, pulling on his boots and hopping on one foot to try to make them come up all the way. He winced as his shoes pinched his toes. "Master, I think I need new boots again."
Dooku lifted an eyebrow. "I told you whenever you needed things to let me know before they became a problem."
Qui-Gon looked away at that. He mumbled. "Yes Master."
Checking the chrono on the wall, Dooku sighed. "If we hurry, we can still make it."
Qui-Gon didn't reply, but instead followed his master out the door at a jog to hurry toward the Council chambers.
As they neared the open doors, Yoda's voice called out, "Late again are you, Master Dooku. This time what excuse have you?"
Qui-Gon's face flushed, waiting for his master's reply as he stood a pace behind his master, which was appropriate for a Jedi padawan.
Dooku bowed in front of the Council to show respect, hiding his irritation. "My padawan forgot the time, Masters. What is it that you need to see us for?"
Qui-Gon's cheeks burned even more as he stood behind his master. He looked down at the floor.
Master Koth did not wait for preliminaries but launched directly into the matter. "Master Dooku. Your actions during the last mission were entirely inappropriate. Do you have any excuse for how you handled the Chieslen incident? You directly countermanded orders and defied authority that said not to interfere."
Dooku flared at that statement. "How could I not interfere when I was faced with that suffering and feeling it all around me?"
Now Master W'go jumped on Dooku, though using his apprentice as a mean to do so. "Padawan Jinn, how do you feel your master acted, especially by countermining Council orders?"
Qui-Gon looked up in surprise. The Council rarely acknowledged he was even there, let alone asked for his opinion. He frowned. "With all due respect, Masters, my master did the best possible job he could. Thousands of lives would have been destroyed had my master not acted. In my opinion, his actions were justified. He saved thousands of lives instead of just one."
Dooku stared at his padawan in surprise. Since being assigned to him after his previous master's death, Qui-Gon rarely stood by his decisions. The Council was just as shocked as Dooku.
Yoda observed Qui-Gon quietly as Master Koth blustered. "You...how do you, a fourteen-year-old apprentice know anything of this situation?" He finally said.
Qui-Gon arched a brow. "Fifteen. I know because I was there, Master Koth. With all due respect to this assembly, you weren't."
Dooku sent his padawan a warning to be careful through their bond but the message was mixed with admiration and gratitude. Dooku turned to Master Koth, trying to get his attentions away from his apprentice. "I did what any Jedi with feelings would have, Masters. If you had been there, you would have done the same. I know our mandates state for us to not follow emotion but if we become senseless beings, then we have lost what it is to be Jedi."
Master Koth narrowed his gaze darkly at Dooku and at the apprentice standing just behind him. "You were under strict orders to protect the royal heir. Now he is dead at your hands. What excuse do you have for this?"
Dooku knew he'd catch their anger for this. "Prince Janhu tried to kill me and also tried to kill countless innocents. When he tried to capture Qui- Gon it became personal. It was for protection that I finally agreed to duel with him. I did not know at the time that he was not as good as he claimed."
Qui-Gon hid a snicker behind his hand at that last part. The prince couldn't fight at all, especially compared to his master, but since he was held hostage at the time, he didn't have much of a say in the matter.
Yoda flicked an ear and turned to his colleagues. "With the master and padawan alone I must speak."
Qui-Gon arched a brow in surprise. He would be included? He bowed his head and held his tongue.
Once all the Council members had filed out, Yoda glanced at Qui-Gon. "Careful with your words you must be. Enemies with Jedi you can make."
Qui-Gon kneeled before the small Jedi Master. "Master I don't understand...he asked for my opinion...and now when I told the truth I'm being questioned for it?"
"Questioned you are not," Yoda clarified. "Prudent it is to monitor truth at times. Master Dooku know this he should."
Qui-Gon narrowed his gaze at that and furrowed his brow. "You mean sometimes you'll hide the truth?" He shook his head. "I don't understand how that could possibly be justified."
"Hide not the truth," Yoda was beginning to sound exasperated. "Proper timing truth waits on. Learn this in time you will."
Qui-Gon stared at the floor. "Yes, Master Yoda."
Yoda turned to Dooku. "Enemies you have. This you know. Why aggravate you Master Koth?"
Master Dooku looked at Yoda evenly. "I wasn't trying to aggravate him, my master. I merely answered what he asked. Maybe he's the one who needs some adjustment."
Yoda allowed a small smile to cross his thin lips briefly. "Understand I do, Master Dooku. Master Koth my concern is not. Your actions, serious are they. Your reasoning question I do not. Worried about influencing young Jinn I do."
Master Dooku sighed and crossed his arms over his chest. "My padawan may pick up some of my methods, that is true. But it is entirely possible that he will disagree with me for the rest of his apprenticeship, then when he is a master he can make his own decisions. It is too early to tell now, how things will go in the future."
Yoda nodded at this. "Still early it is. Point made, Master Dooku. "
Qui-Gon frowned, irritated at being talked about like he was not there. "Masters, with all due respect I'd appreciate it if you talked to me and not about me."
Yoda sighed and Master Dooku glared at his padawan, all earlier feelings of warmth gone. "This is what Master Yoda means by telling you to be silent, Qui-Gon," he snapped. "Sometimes your comments are not necessary."
Qui-Gon's gaze darkened at the sharp rebuke but he didn't reply, dropping his gaze to the floor. He winced a little and tried to move his pinched toes around in his boots.
Yoda waved them away in dismissal. "Much to talk about have you. Go now."
Dooku, without another word, turned and strode back out of the room, his thoughts miles away. Qui-Gon stood again and bowed to Master Yoda. He frowned when his master did not and hurried to catch up to Dooku's long strides. A stray thought entered his mind that he hoped his master had not forgotten his birthday with all this excitement from the Council.
Dooku finally spoke as he paused outside of the meditation room. "I want you to spend the next several hours meditating on how to not open your mouth with every glib comment and why it is important for you not to do so. When you think you have adequate reasoning, alert me through our bond and I will come get you."
Qui-Gon looked up at the instruction. "But, Master.it's time for lunch."
Dooku just gave him a look.
Qui-Gon sighed heavily, irritated at being punished for something he didn't think he did wrong. Without another word he headed into the meditation room.
Dooku let himself smile as the door closed behind his apprentice. Qui-Gon evidently thought he had forgotten his birthday. This little tirade with the Council gave him ample excuse to get his surprise birthday party set up. Knowing Qui-Gon, he'd be in the meditation room for a while, trying to curb his thoughts. With lots of things to finish planning, Dooku hurried off.
Qui-Gon sighed heavily as he sat in the meditation room in meditation posture. The room was completely empty except for himself. He didn't feel like meditating. The longer he sat there, the more he felt like he was being unjustly punished. His thoughts turned to how he had been treated by Master Dooku. His master usually didn't get so mad so quickly and then punish him right away. Why did things like this have to happen on the one day that was supposed to be a happy day? Did Master Dooku even remember today was his birthday? Frowning at the injustice of it, he crossed his arms.
Qui-Gon heaved a sigh wondering what else his master would do to him for being late to the Council meeting.
Happy birthday Qui, he thought sarcastically to himself. The council didn't even acknowledge it when he'd corrected them on his age.
The more he sat there, thinking of how unfair it all was, the more upset he got. Finally, after staying in the meditation room for about thirty minutes, he couldn't take it anymore. Closing down his side of the bond, he stood and peered around the door to see if anyone was there. Seeing no one, he raced down the halls toward the front hall.
Qui-Gon stopped at the exit to the Jedi temple and bit his lip. His master would be absolutely furious to find him not meditating but his resolve hardened as he remembered why he was supposed to meditate in the first place. He pulled open the door and headed out.
A storm was brewing beyond the spires of Coruscant. What a day this was turning out to be. Storms on Coruscant were always vicious, offering hardly any protection from its onslaught. Qui-Gon hurried away from the Temple as much to get away from the unfairness as to run away from the storm headed his way. He found shelter half an hour later near a cantina practically buried in building rubble. It was appropriately named "The Shack". To his dismay, though, a swoop biker gang appeared, bearing down on The Shack-and his position-swiftly.
He crawled beneath an awning, hoping to find shelter without causing attention to himself. He crouched low behind a pile of shipping crates and waited. It was when he dropped his hand to his waist for his lightsaber that he realized with a gasp he didn't have it. He'd taken it off when he'd sat down in the meditation room.
Qui-Gon could have kicked himself. That was the most stupid thing he could have done, especially after he had left all by himself with no one knowing where he was. He needed protection...but he was not going back inside the Temple for it. Someone would see him and he'd be stuck there.
Qui-Gon bit his lip as he crouched behind the shipping crates, hoping they wouldn't notice him. He rebuked himself sharply for leaving his weapon on the meditation room floor. Master Dooku is gonna kill me...
The leader of the swoop gang held up his hand, his long dreadlocks swinging over his face. "Hold up, man," he barked at his six followers. "What've we got here, hiding in the shadows? You a runaway, kid?"
Qui-Gon narrowed his gaze darkly. "No. I just dropped something. I think I'll go back now."
The leader scowled, showing off his missing teeth. With a barely seen flick of a finger, the other bikes looped around, blocking Qui-Gon's escape. "What's your hurry, man? Come join us inside. Maybe you'll find what it is you're looking for in there." Several of the cronies laughed at this.
Qui-Gon bit his lip, worried, but he tried not to show it. He reached out to the Force. "You don't need me inside. I can go."
For a moment, the swoop leader looked as if he were about to tell him to go, then his eyes narrowed. "Hey, yous guys! We got a Jedi kid here!" He frowned at Qui-Gon. "I'm not that stupid man. You shouldn't've done that."
Qui-Gon bit his lip again and decided to try to make a run for it. He ran at the nearest man blocking his exit, hoping to startle the swoop riders enough to let him go.
Unfortunately for him, these swoop riders were not completely dumb nor were they slow. While he was attacking the two nearest his exit, two others bore down on him, kicking him in the back and knocking him down to the ground.
Qui-Gon gasped as he was knocked down hard to the ground, the breath driven from his lungs. The asphalt beneath him cut his palms and he briefly pondered the idea of calling to his master for help then decided against it
The swoop leader laughed as his quarry pushed himself painfully back to his knees. "How 'bout you go inside with us now, Jedi? We's got business to settle."
Qui-Gon glared. "Make me." He pushed himself up to his feet and brushed the asphalt off of his torn pants.
Instead of getting angry, the swoop leader only laughed again. Tilting his head in another invisible signal, three of his followers placed their swoops in idle and jumped on top of the Jedi.
Qui-Gon gasped, the breath knocked from him a second time, and he struggled to get out from under them, kicking and punching whatever he could. He reached out to the Force and shoved at the three men on top of him.
The leader merely watched calmly as the three who jumped Qui-Gon were hurtled through the air by an invisible fist. Sighing in boredom, he turned his wrist to the right to signal to the lone woman of the group, who had snuck up behind Qui-Gon with a loaded vial, to inject him. Grinning, showing more missing teeth than the leader, the woman obeyed.
Qui-Gon struggled back to his feet and sucked in a breath as he was pricked in the exposed part of his neck. Within seconds a lightheaded feeling stole over him and he fell to the ground, unable to move.
*MASTER!*
The six swoop gang members bent over him and picked him up, carrying their prize into their hideout, knowing that he could do no damage now.