Summary:
Disclaimer: I don't own Star Wars. I don't own any recognizable characters. I made no money from this
Guarding Kaiden
By DemonChild666
Chapter 1
There were many theories to explain the mysterious disappearance of the High Prince Luke Vader. Some said his father had killed him in a fit of rage, the same way he killed so many others. Some said he had been kidnapped by one of Lord Vader's many enemies, maybe a surviving Jedi. Some, who were more superstitious than others, said that the deity that had given Lord Vader his black magic powers had demanded the young prince as a sacrifice in return.
Lord Vader himself didn't know what to think, except that he certainly hadn't killed his son, as he would undoubtedly remember doing so.
He woke up on the morning of what would have been Luke's eighth birthday in a bad mood, as usual. Vader remembered another morning like this, almost two years ago. He hadn't known at the time, but that was the last time he would see his only son for a very long time, possibly forever.
Vader turned on the holonet terminal so he could listen to the News Headlines while he practicing his lightsaber technique, as he did every day.
Vader quickly destroyed two droids and disabled another. As usual, the news came on while he trained.
What Vader heard made him stop moving in shock, and consequentially, one of his mechanical knees got shot. Vader used the Force to turn off the droids and limped over to the holonet terminal, where the newsreader was still rapidly speaking.
'The Kaminoan Prime Minister Lama Su has signed the official treaty stating Kamino to be now part of the Empire. This means Imperial Citizens, who have enough money, of course, will now be able to legally use the Kaminoan's cloning faculties,' the newsreader said.
'This is Mason Mertanser, of the channel 1145.8 news; we will be right back after these messages,'
An ad for some form of possibly edible breakfast cereal blared out at the room. Vader was already limping out the door.
Nine years later
Lucifer Angelwing was a bounty hunter, despite his youth, and he was good at it. On one occasion on Corellia, Lucifer was being paid by the Rebel Alliance to kidnap a Grand Moff who was apparently the worst one in the entire Empire, and that was saying a lot.
Lucifer didn't much care whether the man would invent the cure for some deadly disease the very next day if left alone, just so long as he was paid for this work and not arrested as the rebels sometimes did to bounty hunters and other such outlaws under their pay. Lucifer looked at the sniveling man at his feet in disgust. He flicked the blaster to stun and pulled the trigger.
He set to work dragging the overweight human a couple of kilometres back to his ship, the Hellrunner.
It took fifteen minutes, but finally, Lucifer made it, only to find that the ship was entirely locked up.
Lucifer's com beeped.
He looked at it, slightly irritated.
When he saw who was calling, he grew even more irritated, which did not bode well for the caller.
He answered the com and laughter came through it, the sort of laughter that is usually heard when one is listening to a small child playing pranks.
Lucifer, who was by now beginning to get angry, started yelling at the com, knowing that it would hurt the sensitive ears of his "friend" who had locked him out, and also knowing that people were beginning to stare at him, which was not unexpected, considering that he was wearing a hooded black cloak (with what was quite possibly blood in more than one place), was dragging an unconscious Imperial official behind him and was screaming into a com.
'Pyro, open that door right now or you will be on a one way trip back to Canthion,' he said.
The door opened within a few seconds of that threat, and the man named Pyro was standing at the door to take Lucifer's cloak, as well as his non-existent hat.
'Go home,' the bounty hunter said, walking past the prankster.
Lucifer threw back his hood to reveal blond hair and blue eyes. There was a long scar running from one ear, across his nose and ending just under his eye. He looked much older than his seventeen years, which suited him just fine. He was a little short, but that didn't make him any less intimidating.
He dragged the body of the unconscious Grand Moff over to a small holding cell. The man would be awake in a few hours, and hopefully he would be off their ship before then.
'I'll be awake when we get there,' said Lucifer, before walking to a door and going through, disappearing out of sight.
Later, Pyro walked into the cockpit and slumped in the pilot's chair, sighing.
A young girl with green hair and eyes was already in the co-pilot's chair and had gotten the ship ready for takeoff.
'Where were you?' she asked angrily.
'Whadda ya mean, where was I?' Pyro snapped.
'Pyro, we were supposed to take off half an hour ago,' she said, slightly annoyed.
'Lucifer wasn't back yet,' Pyro said grumpily.
'Oh,' the girl said.
'He hates me,' Pyro complained.
'Lucifer hates everyone,' she said.
They took off and were about to enter hyperspace when Pyro suddenly thought of something.
'Emerald, where's Quartz?' Pyro asked.
Emerald looked up, frowning.
'I haven't seen him in a while, but I don't think he disembarked on Corellia,' she said thoughtfully.
Suddenly, Pyro's flamethrower got picked up by something invisible and disappeared.
Pyro stared at the place where it had been.
'QUARTZ!' he screamed.
On the other side of the ship, Lucifer suddenly woke up and pulled out his blaster, looking for the threat. When he couldn't find it, he got up and went to listen at the door to the cockpit.
Back in the cockpit, a boy appeared, laughing and holding Pyro's flamethrower.
Pyro stood up to his full height, which was significantly larger than the boy's, and tried to grab his flamethrower. Unfortunately, Pyro's hand went right through the boy.
The kid laughed more.
'Quartz, give him back his flamethrower, we don't want a repeat of what happened last time he lost it,' Emerald said.
Quartz and Emerald both smiled at the memory, although Lucifer had reminded them of some of the stories they had heard about Darth Vader, as he had been so mad at the necessary stop on Sullust that they had taken while Pyro was waiting to be released from jail.
'That wasn't funny,' Pyro grumbled.
'No, that was funny Pyro, what wasn't funny was the way Lucifer almost killed you afterwards,' Quartz said.
'My throat didn't recover for days,' Pyro said, still grumbling.
'Yes, we know, you never shut up about it,' Emerald said.
Pyro, unable to think of a suitable comeback, somehow managed to shut up and get back to piloting the ship.
A little while later, he was getting bored, having entered hyperspace and set course for Yavin 4.
'So, let's get back to how much we hate Lucifer,' he said.
Lucifer, who was still listening from the next room, raised an eyebrow.
After listening to their conversation for a while, he was beginning to grow a little bit annoyed.
Apparently they hated him because he wouldn't go after the extremely high bounty for a Jedi Master named Yoda.
Of course, the reason for this was that Yoda was so elusive that a thousand competent bounty hunters might search every planet in both the known and unknown galaxy and never find him.
Even if Lucifer did find Yoda, he was one of the most powerful Jedi of all time. It was highly unlikely that Lucifer would ever manage to capture him.
Emerald eventually changed the topic of conversation to Lucifer's mental and emotional health.
Lucifer kept listening, even more displeased with them.
I'll cut their pay later, he thought.
Emerald sighed unhappily.
'Something wrong, Emerald?' asked Quartz.
Emerald looked up.
'Oh, it's nothing; I'm just worried about Lucifer.
Pyro laughed, for a long time.
'Excuse me; we are having a serious conversation here, Pyro, which means there is no room for you. Leave, please,' Quartz said, after Pyro had finished laughing.
Pyro frowned, but other than that, completely ignored Quartz and his rude comments.
'Worried about Lucifer? Why would you bother? Last time I checked, Lucifer was the person who beat Boba Fett in unarmed combat when he was only fourteen,' he said.
'I don't mean he's in physical danger,' Emerald said, talking slowly, as if Pyro was too stupid to understand what she was telling him. She wasn't too far off.
'I just mean that he never talks about anything with anyone and one day, that is going to all come out. A person can't just lock up like that all the time and not suffer for it.'
'What?' Pyro asked.
Emerald groaned and muttered a curse at Pyro's inferior intelligence levels.
'Shut up, bonehead, leave the thinking to those with brains,' she said.
Quartz nodded in agreement. Pyro, feeling quite unhappy and friendless, stayed quiet.
Three hours later, they exited Hyperspace. Right at that moment, Lucifer walked in. Pyro stared at him.
'How do you do that?' he asked, amazed that the younger man had woken up at exactly the right moment yet again.
Lucifer looked at him.
'I can do that because I'm smart, unlike certain people aboard this ship,' he said, with a pointed glare at Pyro.
'You're mean, Lucy,' complained Pyro, forgetting momentarily the lethality of calling Lucifer "Lucy".
Lucifer turned to look at Pyro, seriously contemplating carrying out his plan to burn out Pyro's eyes, set his hair on fire, drop him in boiling water, force him to eat Brussels sprouts and nail him to the side of the ship.
It only took a few seconds for him to make his decision.
Lucifer grabbed Pyro by his oversized hair and dragged him to the galley. A few seconds later, agonized screaming could be heard all over the ship.
Lucifer walked back in, followed by Pyro, who looked like he was about to throw up.
'You didn't have to do that,' Pyro complained, sounding like he had actually thrown up, 'I would have gotten the point if you had just poked my eyeballs out, you didn't have to force feed me Brussels sprouts,'
He fell into the pilot's seat.
Lucifer looked at him, exasperated by Pyro's ability to think, which was sadly lacking.
'Pyro, you are the ship's pilot. If you lost your sight, you wouldn't be much use to us, would you?' Lucifer said.
Pyro frowned and thought about that for a bit. Two standard time parts later, they were landing on Yavin Four.