SHGS - Chapter Two: The Dark Lord
Disclaimer: I do not own, or profit, from Naruto, Star Wars, and all associated media.
A/N
"This chapter has become a merger of chapters two and three,"
- Darklighter
"Thoughts"
"Speech"
"Abnormal sentient thoughts"
"Abnormal sentient speech"
Naruto had never seen anything like it. Shaped like a dagger, and with a dull mottled green and black coat of iron the vessel before him was completely beyond his experience.
It was cached in plain sight; just a crow's piss away from Konoha. Part of Naruto marveled at this accomplishment, but this close up he felt a brooding malevolence that made him wonder how it remained hidden from the city of warriors a few miles away.
Something in him, something deep in his gut, shied away from the vessel. He did not want to enter its confines.
"What is it?" He asked, stunned.
"A S-T-A-R ship," Traya said. There was a knowing look in her eyes as she revealed this. "Models like these are generally known as War-Yachts. Do I have to tell you to watch your step as you come aboard?"
She was already standing on the gangplank which had opened with an otherworldly hiss upon their approach.
During the stalk here - he found Mara never walked, but perpetually stalked - his savior had absently told him that she, her master, and the rivals that had come along with them hailed from the stars.
At the time Naruto had still felt a shade of discomfort from the beating he had received earlier, and his mind had been jaundiced.
But now his mind was clear. Predictably the reality of everything left him petrified.
A sudden churlish and childish futility stole up on him then at the injustice of it all. "I can't believe you're three years older than me," he said "people have always called me a runt but you don't look your age at all. Know that?"
"Don't even try to fuck with me," she deadpanned, "and if you do, and you find that I deign to let you live afterwards... don't be so OTT," he couldn't detect any humor or warmth in her eyes. Just cold dispassion that froze him till he burned
He had nothing to say to that. Sulking was the only thing left in his power.
"Get up here now."
There was no point in putting it off. The sun was already halfway set, and he pitied himself when he realized that some part of him had still harbored illogical notions of returning to sleep in bed own, despite all that had happened. It was his birthday for Kami's sake.
"I already came this far," he finally submitted as he joined her on the gangplank.
"And I guess I have never really had a choice in any of this. Not since you rescued me."
She smiled at that, so he imagined that her fire-blade smiled with her.
After that it was just a matter of steeling himself. He was a ninja to be. He did not know who his parents were but they came from Konoha. He came from Konoha. When facing inevitable death he knew how to make himself as iron.
In the years to come he would laugh at such absurd notions.
There was nothing overwhelmingly out-of-this world at first. Granted everything had this shiny metallic look. Even the lights that were deeply set in the walls of the passageway they followed into the deep of the ship gave out a glow that was refined and frankly... alien to anything he had encountered before.
But this was not what shocked him out of all assumptions and notions about the universe.
At first he had not known what, or who, he had been looking at.
Traya had led him through a sequence of hissing doors; the serpentine acquiescence of their opaque glass forms highlighted by the lurid green coloring that was the main schema of the war-yacht's interior.
After the last door they had crossed a short causeway that by some trick of illusion, for the ship was not so vast, gave the impression that they approached an ugly square construction that hung in the midst of nothing and blackness.
"That is my Master's meditation chamber," even Traya's voice trembled oh so softly as she whispered. She had lost some of her silver composure as everything finally came to an ending of sorts, and Naruto drew sustenance from this of all things.
Though it was very dark traces of light came from the square chamber. Traya started across the causeway, and as Naruto followed he saw that the structure was larger than his first guess.
"I would advise you not to speak when we get in there," Traya said.
Naruto started a bit at that.
Ironically, though she had saved his life, there had never been a point where Naruto thought that Traya could be his friend, or could care about him in any capacity other than as an objective.
He had seen the same look she had about her in veteran Shinobi. He may have only been ten, but some of those veterans moonlighted as tutors and administrators in his school. He knew the look of a warrior.
Later in life, when he discovered more about his own past, Naruto would shrug at all of this. His being had been steeped in violence since before birth, and the tea his destiny's weaver drank was death.
"Thanks for the advice?"
"I'm not saying keeping quiet will mean that you will end up leaving here alive, but you never know," she added helpfully.
"Every little bit counts," there was a false swagger in his step as he followed her. He realized he was more a prisoner now than at any time before in his short life. If she had wanted to she could have brought him here without one or two limbs as she had threatened to do previously.
Yet he couldn't help but be excited. When all was said and done it wasn't every day you got the opportunity to meet beings from the stars. Naruto didn't think so at any rate. You may wonder at that, but as a being that had spent most of his life watching people conjure flame, lighting, and water from thin air; his mind and creativity was somewhat malleable.
Once the dread of the being that inhabited the meditation chamber had fully settled over him Naruto approached grim destiny in a manner that would have made anyone proud.
Traya punched some symbols into a shimmering keypad that hovered where none had been before. There was a very long pause. After this Naruto felt the attention of the being within shift fully onto the two of them. After a burning and intense second that left Naruto's spirit wrung out and dry a noise came that sounded like confirmation; the green doors slid aside.
Then he met a tree.
He met an evil, talking tree.
Deadly strength lived within the creature that stepped gingerly down the mountain trail sandwiched a scant three meters between Kisame and himself.
He was careful not to forget that; despite how calmly she had surrendered herself to their will in the end. He was glad that though she was well used to this world - as could be inferred from her strange but adapted garments and knowledge of common forest lore - she had not yet met a Shinobi of his unique talents.
But now she had broken one of his strongest Genjutsu, and in the doing causing him considerable pain. He could not predict the outcome of their next battle.
Usually he would have exterminated a being of such power that had fallen into his mercy. His secret motivation, the destruction of Akatsuki from within, dictated that yet another group pursuing the – best left alone – tailed beasts was untenable. But there were reasons why he had fought against every instinct, and was even now travelling at apparent ease behind her.
Although the decision could eventually come to haunt him the stark bluntness of her surrender still shocked him.
"My people are well versed in betrayal. It is our way. I have two masters. One of them who would have had me kill the pair of you. As you can see I have tried and failed to do. My other master on the however would offer you and yours power unimagined. Which of them would you honor?"
From her tone at the time one wouldn't have thought that she had been kneeling at the time as she proffered them a weapon which was clearly millennia ahead of anything Terra could produce.
This alien female may lead me to my end.
"You still don't understand me," she said suddenly.
They had been walking for two days, avoiding the towns, and she had said little except to complain about her lekku when the sun was up, or the cold wind was out.
Kisame and Itachi had made quite a few jokes at her expense, using hand language of course, but as hardened killers they soon tired of that. They probably hated travelling slowly by road and forest almost as much as she did.
"We haven't really tried to if you think about it," Itachi decided to say.
"Not that you haven't told us bucketful's already," Kisame called back. He twisted one eye to peer past his sheer hairstyle and looming sword.
"Well neither of you have told me where we are going, or who we are going to see. I told you that the way of my people was of betrayal, but you missed the point. I only betrayed my first master after his way - killing the both of you - proved inexpedient. Now that I intend to ally with you, and with the intentions of my second master, you will find me very co-operative."
"Your level of fluency in our language is very impressive," Itachi
"What?" For the first time she looked confused. Language apparently was not such a big deal for her.
"You don't speak like a foreigner, or a native of any region farther than half a world away," Kisame added helpfully.
"You speak like someone who has been living in this part of the world all their life," Itachi continued, " add that to your strange mannerisms, technology, and dress you don't need to tell us much... or explain yourself," he concluded.
She was about to voice something to this but the shark like blue hulk ahead was evidently fed up with the conversation.
"Bitch from the stars wants to enlist shadowy group of criminals to take over the galaxy," he said.
"We're thinking about it."
At first the tree, monster, man, whatever!
Didn't do much to harm him; it only checked their minds deeply right before they entered, yet even with that touch Naruto felt the age and power of the thing.
Now it focused in shifting its shape. He didn't know if it was flaunting for his own benefit, but what had been a tree flowed like a molten lava of roots, earth, flesh, bark, and bone to becoming a bipedal creature of strapped muscle.
He supposed that he should be thankful for small mercies. The transformative display had been so awe and fright inspiring that the final seven and a half meter height of Traya's Master's form was by contrast normal.
"You have done well Traya," the creature said.
What Naruto supposed were lips moved, though it was hard to tell with so little light, but he felt more like he got a feel for what it was saying coming from inside of him and pouring out. Cold; everything about these people was so cold, and something hot inside him could barely take it anymore. Something inside wanted to break free.
He noticed for the first time that the huge creature was actually hunched over. It was as if it could not maintain full posture despite its apparent strength and vitality.
"I will now claim the tailed beast."
Surprisingly Traya took the time to duck him a small look even though her Master's attention was full on her. She looked... sad?
"Huh? Claim the beast?"
"Umm Traya? Is there anything else? In the end I am actually really happy that you saved me from those guys you know? And I didn't really mean all that stuff about you being small. I was just a bit confused. Jheez it must be awesome coming from the stars right?
"I dunno if it's for me, but I'm just saying... yea... it's been a long day today. It's my birthday you know? Crazy right? But it's true.
"That's why if I could just you know... leave... I won't be any trouble. I won't tell anybody about any of this and I definitely don't know anything about any tailed beasts or whatever. Maybe you saved the wrong guy? I can help you find him you know. The guy you're really looking for. Heh. Lucky you to have a native that can guide you to the right guy and all."
Naruto barely knew what he was saying, nor could he tell if his words had any effect but he simply continued to speak. Fear was on him to the point where he was on the brink of urinating on himself. In fact the only reason he stopped was for the need to take a breath.
He would have continued if he did not feel the presence of Traya's Master suffuse him fully in the next moment.
This time he knew who the strange alien was.
Deimus the last Dark Lord of the Sith.
He experienced a fragment of a mind several orders of magnitude more organized, coherent, and fruitful than his.
He died.
He lived.
He felt the Dark Lord rip something out of him. Something foreign that did not belong in him, but was put there.
As this happened he could have learned about the truth of his birth and existence, such was the melding of minds between him and the Dark Lord at that instant, but Deimus was a Dark Lord and Deimus did not wish to throw him any really tasty bones.
As a parting gift and Naruto got the sense, some obligatory or ritual payment, Deimus implanted a rudimentary knowledge of the society he came from, and the language commonly spoken.
Yet even as this knowledge transferred in Deimus took something powerful from him and assimilated it into his own being.
In the years to follow, and as he grew in the Force, Naruto would learn to come to nurse this first betrayal dearly against his Master.
As it was all he felt was unending agony.
Oddly when it was finally over he smelt all that was sweet; honeysuckle and rosemary, fresh sugar, and scented jasmine, and much that was bitter, fire with thyme, and ash mixed with chalk.
Naruto would not wake for a long time. A week and more would pass before he rejoined the world of the living. More than enough time for the only world he'd ever known to be gone.
Osvaldus had always hated these sorts of meetings.
This was where he and the Shinobi of this world thought alike.
Though philosophically he would place them as closer to the famed and rare Mandalorians they shared his Sith penchant for dirty dealings, and underhanded tactics.
By contrast, the fawning politician he was having breakfast with wouldn't be able to hide a conspiracy if he was given two haystacks and an ocean.
That was as it was though, and in the end everything was steadily falling into place.
Life was like a Sabaac game. He had learned to stand by this precept on Nar Shaddaa long before Deimus had ever crossed his path.
Nerves and planning are the only tools needed to win.
It hadn't taken him very long at all to realize that the civilian governments which claimed to control the strongest Shinobi villages were actually controlled by the very military forces which purported to protect them.
The whole thing was an organized crime ring that prevented anything new from truly emerging on planet. To achieve his objective - the harnessing of the planet's force latents- he had to appease the civilians and the Shinobi, and this meeting was about appeasing the civilians.
Let greed do what my words do not.
"So you are saying that there will be many, many more of these... droids?" the worm grunted.
The man was surprisingly sleek for a high ranking official of the water country, whose type tended to run to fat, still you wouldn't have thought just looking at him that this man represented the interests of almost three quarters the industrial and commercial factions in the world; all the important ones anyway.
Osvaldus didn't do things by half measures, but he had never been much in favor of the procedural aspects of things.
"Yes many more. Enough droids for many factories, and more besides, weapons for enlisted forces, precious stones - common the galaxy over – will be provided in payment to all that join our cause. The secrets of space travel, and eventually… who knows? "
"Eventually..." The man was leaning forward. Dull eyed and slack. The whole of his shirt front was in his untouched breakfast, and he did not even care. Such was the skill with which Osvaldus caressed his mind.
"I think that is enough," Osvaldus delicately dabbed at his mouth with a table napkin before slowly stepping out of the private booth. The breakfast throng was crowding close.
He hated the water country.
Eventually there will be no need for procedure. The Shinobi will have ships. I will have their allegiance by any means necessary, and anyone in the galaxy who tries to stop me will be obliterated.
Yes. He couldn't wait till he was dealing mostly with Shinobi again. At least they were warriors.
Jake Livermore had hidden under the bush for hours. He had hidden as if his life depended upon his skill at doing so.
The small girl with the blue baton of destruction had killed all of his friends. It was a wonder she had not spotted him as he could smell their corpses from his current position.
He thought he could hear what he thought were ravens, and or vultures pecking at them.
So much for his good day of fun.
He didn't really know what to do as it had been his friends goading him on into following them after the demon boy.
Jake didn't really have anything so deeply personal against the brat but it had seemed fun. That was until he had realized the intensity of what they were doing.
He had slunk away after Chuta placed his knee squarely in the brat's back. That had been enough for him. Some things were too much.
He had dived into the bushes once he heard the screams, and it was only now, many hours later, that he decided to move.
He had been forced to remain as still as he had ever done before in his life when the A.N.B.U. had found the bodies. By that time he was halfway back to the village, and by some miracle he had been able to lie his way out of their interrogation talking about how he had visited a cousin in one of the farm hamlets.
Eventually he would tell a real cousin, a ninja, what had happened.
After all someone had to make sure that the demon brat had conjured up more of his ilk from somewhere, and the dead guys had been his friends after a fashion.
That girl had certainly fought like a demon. From the little he heard of course.
But that someone couldn't be him. Let his cousin do it and take all the acclaim or drama that came with that.
Of course there was no way he could have considered telling the A.N.B.U. he passed the truth.
Being charitable was one thing being stupid was another.
They would probably blame him.
Two Days after Osvaldus's distress beacon.
Jedi Knight Finton Stetil did not know what to make of recent events.
It was not often that this was the case. Knight Stetil was no longer a green backed neophyte fresh out of his Padawan greys and temple lock. No. Finton had been embedded within Coruscant's criminal underworld for the best part of three years, and the trail of jacked spice and prostitution had led him all the way back to the ancestral and eternal home of all such things. Nar Shaddaa.
He supposed he was lucky to have been born not only force sensitive, but also on Coruscant. The planet's Jedi enclave was the only one still in existence that had the resources to fund a deep cover operation such as this one. A mission that had so far spanned worlds without end, but missions such as this one were all he knew.
The grime such an operation left on one's soul didn't bother him in the slightest.
Finton Stetil wielded force lightning in battle and yet still walked in the light. He was assured of his own morality.
Still... he couldn't help but think what it would have been like to live in the days of legend. What would it have been like to live in the time of the Skywalkers?
Caedus, Luker, and Anakahaen.
Jaina, Marah, and Leehla.
What would they have thought of him? What would he have thought of them? One thing he did know was that a Jedi could not help but judge.
"What you thinking about this op Fint?"
Mexes Herstock had a hulking voice that overmatched his slender frame. A Mandalorian didn't have any right to be pretty as he was, nor to have a body that was yet to be scarred by battle.
Sometimes Finton wondered what had brought a being from such proud stock so low as to run with spice traffickers.
Mostly though, when it came to Mexes, he thought about what it would be like when he stopped being 'Deadly Fintin Aim,' and became Finton Stetil Jedi Knight.
It was always a hard thing when you had to kill a friend.
He wished the part of him that didn't want that day to ever come wasn't so vast.
"I'm never sure of anything that slimy Hutt asks us to do," Fint said.
"Or any Hutt for that matter," Mexes agreed.
Vasuya wasn't that bad as far as Hutt's went, but then the whole species were the most literal slime balls in existence so that wasn't worth much.
"It's in the Wild regions, westerly," Mexes drawled. He always liked to discuss a pending mission no matter how he relished insulting their soulless employer. He was relaxed. Dressed casually as they were at home in the apartment they shared on Nar Shaddaa. For some reason neither of them really trusted anyone else on planet.
"N'old fashioned slave run. Though I don't know which team will be under us. I hope it's not the Yavanese Terrors. They're such a dirty bunch, and I can't stand that prick Tarasine.
Tarasine Waj came from good traditional Mandalorian stock.
Mexes was his living antithesis.
Mexes was very strange for a Mandalorian.
His personality just didn't fit with their cultural ethos. Except for when he was fighting. Then he was all Mandalorian and more. He often insisted to Fint when drunk that how he was when he fought should have been all that mattered, but Mandalorians are particularly stiff about certain things, and the few of them there were working out of Nar Shaddaa avoided him like the plague whenever it could be helped.
And as for Finton?
He had an undercover operation to worry about.
There isn't much time in the week for socializing when you have to worry about things like that.
"A contact of the Hutt's alerted him to an unclaimed target ripe for material plunder," Mexes released a theatrical shudder and blood curdling grin.
Sometimes he could be uncouth.
"I think it's going to go the way it always goes," Finton said.
"How is that?"
"You and I are going to kill a lot of people."
Present
There were very few things, or tasks, in this world that could get under Hatake Kakashi's skin.
One of those things was paperwork, a curse he shared with every elite ninja plying his or her trade under the sun.
Today was one of those rare days when he had to take care of his assigned burden of the dreaded paperwork. Shinobi hated doing it so much that the lower ranks would surely have rebelled if their betters had been excluded from serving in the trenches, and so for 20 hours every month he found himself seated beside a motley collection of Chuunins and Jounins.
It was sheer coincidence that the particular confidential note reached him.
The Kyubbi had been kidnapped.
Flash's kid was gone.
"Over a week has elapsed since I summoned you. Why have you been tardy?"
"I have been in the water country furthering our aims Master," Osvaldus replied smoothly.
By now he had long since learned to remain somewhat at ease in the presence of his liege, and he deftly shielded his true motives from the questing mental branches of his Master's mind with a sheer veil of simple and patently out of context truth.
To win a Sabaac game such as this one had to be equal to pressure, and his Master had spent much time training him.
He used those skills in their entirety; plus the bits and bobs he had pieced together for himself.
Not every battle was fought with Lightsabers.
As far as Osvaldus knew he won this round because his Master gave no sign that he had found anything amiss in his oldest student's mind.
"We must speak. I have begun to accomplish what the dark side sent me here to do. I have begun to gather power that will make the galaxy tremble. Ten days ago I consumed on of the Tailed Beasts."
"Which one?" Osvaldus asked, praying to all his ancestral spirits that Deimus did not detect a hitch in his tone or an extra bead of perspiration upon his brow.
The Tailed Beasts?! The old Satyr told me that they were a dead end! That we could never contain their power and yet live!
"I do not choose to tell you which I have consumed, but tomorrow I would have you go into Konoha and determine how much is known about a certain Uzumaki Naruto. Depending on your results we may have to destroy much of the city before we leave, but I estimate that their neighbors will fall upon them like wolves if we do enough damage so it does not matter much at any rate. It has been a long time since I sated my thirsts."
So blunt the way his Master insisted on speaking directly to your mind. So blunt the power his Master now wielded. Whether he had been blinded by hubris, or simply did not know what to look for. Osvaldus had not noticed how healthy his Master looked.
Already the Lesions that had been a constant despite his transfigurations were closing their weeping sores. A vast energy seemed to bubble in the force in the place where his Master stood. Vaster than anything he could imagine.
"Master," he bowed, "I live to obey."
A smile did not return to his heart till later. Later when he was on his way to carrying out his Master's bidding, licking his wounds and waiting for a better opportunity for his act of usurpation, when he got the most interesting message from Xanthe.
She believes she can enlist Akatsuki
They were an organization his shadows had heard much about.
If the work he had already done with the commercial powers of the world was his zero, and the signal he had sent to Nar Shaddaa was his two, then Akatsuki could be his three.
Zero, two, and three... Idiot's array. There is no stronger hand in Sabaac.
Finally the smile that had been threatening to burst forth his heart managed to exert a slight pull on one corner of his lip.
(If he wasn't such an evil bugger Iprobably wouldn't be so glad to report that this uncharacteristic feeling did not last long.)
He heard a dry whine that he had not heard for two years. The hypnotic sound of Deimus's state of the art War-Yacht, The Libertine, as its hyper drive powered up fully for the first time in a long while.
A few seconds later he spied its sleek form for an instant as it streaked through the sky roiling the evening clouds in its wake. It zoomed straight as an arrow for Konoha.
At least he was more at ease with the frustration and anger that roiled in his gut in those moments. He embraced the emotions fully releasing a wordless psychic communications to his Master huddled in the bowels of The Libertine.
That soundless scream contained all the decades of hurt he had endured, and thrived under as a Sith apprentice.
"Osvaldus..." His Master lingered over his name, and his voice positively purred with malicious glee.
"I depart with Mara and my new apprentice, and leave you to wizen on this rock. I sensed the stench of deception on you from the moment you ambled into my sight, and I have decided to leave you to reflect for a while on your folly... before I come back to collect your head."
No Master.
The words came unbidden to his brain as he watched the last trail of his mentor's ship disappear over the horizon and the psychic connection receded.
You have had me off-balance this whole while though I did not realize it. Now I realize that the Dark side is moving yet we are still in the early rounds. The cards in my possession haven't lost their power yet.
Before he left Terra Deimus announced his brief stay on the planet in a way that he had held off doing for a long time with much difficulty.
The illness he had succumbed to whilst on Terra had infuriated him. Mostly this was due to the pride he had in his control over his biological functions, and transformations. Now that he was hale and healthy he aimed to vent his wrath fully.
On that day Deimus tore a rent in the force that would take decades to heal.
The land of Fire was the most populated in the entire known world, and the echoes of the grief he caused at the heart of their military operation in Konoha would announce the eyes of a hostile galaxy to Terra in a way that would engender fear and loathing in all the land for generations to come.
He took much joy in instructing The Libertine's AI to destroy much of the Hokage Tower, and surrounding governmental structures of the city. As he watched the fires spread, and the city burn, from the safety of his meditation chamber he reflected on how, in some ways, The Libertine's A.I was so much closer to him than any of his disciples.
Its intelligence operated on a level that was comfortably closer to his, and this led Deimus to feel something like camaraderie towards his sleek ship; which of course was comfortably under his control, and thoroughly corrupted by his evil.
They broke out of the planet's atmosphere together, and Konoha became another pleasant memory shelved and catalogued.
The world became just another small step on the long road to Godhood.
Neti and ship were content.
Kakashi was in the Hokage Tower when the building was struck.
Well... he was on it. He was on its roof.
This singular fact is what saved his life, and the lives of many of his fellow Shinobi.
He had rushed to the Tower after reading the news of Naruto's abduction.
The Hokage had been visibly shaken by the news more so by the fact that it had gone unreported for so long.
Everybody hated paperwork, but Kakashi suspected there was just a little bit more to it than that.
They quickly congregated onto the roof A.N.B.U. squads and Juunin only. From the brief missive penned by a dismissive Chuunin, a girl out of fairy tale had destroyed a group of innocent farmhands.
The Hokage had started to take the matter very seriously after his scrying ball had failed to locate Naruto.
It was then that the Hokage called all the vital personnel on to the traditional roof staging area.
Danzo made an appearance. Somehow word had filtered down to the sewers.
Kakashi's ruby eye burned at the sight of the man.
Just as instructions were being yelled out, the retrieval of the Villages future weapon absolutely vital, a dark blot appeared in the skyline.
It was hard to say what the approaching mass was, or even to say how big it was.
Kakashi was soon to find out that was the least of their worries.
At what seemed like an impossible distance the vessel, for that is what it had to be, opened fire with virulent gouts of energy.
The beams were some twisted cross of technology that produced magma, fire, and lightning all in one.
The only fact that saved most of their lives was that The Libertine's cannons purposefully targeted the waistline of the building, the better to slaughter those who travailed within, before tracking all over the place to spread general carnage.
The Shinobi did what Shinobi did best; evading like hares, and getting the hell out of there, fleeing off the roof tops with wooden sandals or leather boots made to defy the wrath of the gods.
Civilians died like poultry, but their blood could not even char the street as the heat from the barrage of lasers and out breaking fires gobbled up the heat, and turned the center of the city into a mess.
The Libertine circled briefly, recording all it had wrought for future study and analysis, before dropping a small proton bomb on the city outskirts.
With that last kiss of death Naruto was whisked to the heavens.
It took the Jedi calm of a dozen years active service to stop Fint from fidgeting.
He had long admired his friend's taste in transport vessel. His Mandalorian War-Yacht was heavily customized with sensor arrays salvaged from old Fondorian technology, and her squat but symmetric shape oozed with weapons systems.
Still he always worried before an action. Something about having to sit down and let others take care of the getting there bothered him immensely.
He watched his friend now.
Mexes was hacked in.
That was what they called it these days the art of piloting.
Powerful A.I technology had made direct ship to ship battle much too costly in personnel and material.
It became a literal question of who could throw the most money at war.
As it turned out no one had quite that much money and most would be conquerors resorted to the age old tactics of orbital insertion as opposed to planetary obliteration.
All was well that ended well he supposed.
Though the ugly helmet that covered all of his partner's face was not the smartest of ; combined with Mexes formidable intellect they were a match for almost anything else loping around the cosmos.
So why was the Force telling him something was about to go terribly wrong?
"Hey… Hex... those are the slave carriers right?"
The viewport was not so large, and he could barely see everything there was to see in the silent night sky. Still the troop carriers which would carry their bounty had started off on a fast approach vector.
More out of habit than anything else Mexes Herstock craned to regard things from his partner's point of view even though he was enmeshed in sensory data that dwarfed the visual perspective.
"Yea Fint it is. I guess they're tracking in on the beacon that brought us here. It just so happens that's a heavily populated area from all the data I'm getting, you think - Woah!"
Mexes was caught off by a sudden jarring as a War-Yacht twice the size of their vessel burst out of the atmosphere and fired an old fashioned dirty nuke wired with shield deflectors at one of the slave ships destroying it utterly.
Fint's jaw dropped as horror dawned on him. He had met the vilest beings the galaxy had to offer, but this was the first time he had found himself in the presence of a Dark Lord. He hadn't thought there were any left.
The presence bore down on him like a weight and he knew it for what it was. The power was displayed so openly, so flagrantly, that it could be no other being.
Suddenly the spice rings of Nar Shaddaa were a low priority - a very low priority.
Vayusa had sent three crews in War-Yachts to protect her slave ships and their two companions streaked off in pursuit of their attacker.
"I'm thinking of following. The odds will be too stacked against him that way, and it will be quicker. I don't care how fancy his AI is," Mexes said.
He was tense. Though he did not count the slavers and spice dealers amongst his friends, Mexes honored his business dealings, and he hated to lose.
Only two slave ships remained.
Finton wanted them both destroyed.
"No," he said quickly but in a measured tone. He was tempted to use force persuasion, but Mexes was a smart man and he had never had the need before.
He relied on his words.
"Let's make sure we can get them in to land and load up the slaves. I think that other ship just wants to leave, although I would be very interested to know how it discovered this planet, I have never seen it on any map and it took the A.I's a long while to plot a course."
He was right. Although Mexes monitored the situation the whole way in, ready to break off his escorting action and join the brawl above the atmosphere, they broke through without incident, and the slave ships were soon settling down amongst lush forestry in plain sight of a primitive, but very large city. The engines burned much of the surrounding to ashes but the pilots of these machines did not care much about such things.
Mexes informed him that the enemy ship had managed to engage its hyper drives after crippling one Yacht and destroying the other.
Unfortunately the surviving War-Yacht contained the irrepressible Tarasine Waj, who curtly informed Mexes that he was returning to Nar Shaddaa to lick his wounds. He was sure to inform Mexes that he considered himself a better man and less of a craven cur as he had actually engaged the enemy.
"Hold off a second," Finton said, when he saw that Mexes was making to land in a clearing not too far away from the slavers.
"Tarasine just called me a cur so I hope you're not asking me to hold off on joining the slave run," Mexes was roused.
"No. No not that. Just circle around a bit, plant her down somewhere a bit farther away and we can walk the rest of the distance."
Finton stood up to indicate his readiness to join the battle.
Armor came on to cover overalls and assault rifle was slung across his front.
Mexes was already armored, although he was unarmed as of yet, and this mollified him a bit.
"Just another one of those feelings you get-a-time huh?" he said, his frustrations breaking softly. He did not know about the Lightsaber that Fint had uncomfortably strapped inside his thigh. It would be really embarrassing if the Jedi Knight ended up losing one pant leg and armor so that he could reach it.
The Jedi Knight wasn't even quite sure how he was supposed to accomplish that in time for it to be any good if it came down to it.
"Yea just one of those. We need to let the grunts get a little seasoning anyway. We'll be joining them by the by after they take care of the initial mess,"
Mexes obeyed his orders and landed a way away. They were hidden from direct view and there was a plausible separation between the main body of pirates and themselves.
"Hope you're ready Mexes said as he struggled out of his helmet. He made his final preparations as Fint wordlessly shouldered his rifle and began the egress sequence for the first exit hatch.
I hope we are friend.
There was still a little bit of daylight.
At least I have my Lightsaber.
That was comforting.
The Shinobi Village of the Leaf had not even begun to think of recovering from the attack.
Although the day was clear elsewhere a haze of gritty smoke and sparking embers cast a pall over the city.
They had not even begun to think of recovering when two dark shapes loomed over the village and proceeded to settle on vital training fields trampling them utterly.
It was as this point; as the Humans, Trandoshans, and Twi'leks ambled out of their transports to collect - what they thought - were helpless primitives that the minds of all the Shinobi gathered in Konoha collectively broke.
They experienced a sequence of emotions all at once; amazement, denial, and rage.
They had been attacked by beings from the heavens.
They would have their blood.
Those who had been using water Jutsu to help combat the fires quickly stopped as they watched the approaching gaggles of alien invaders, each at least two hundred creatures strong.
All the Shinobi in Konoha surged up and over the city's walls, flitting from walk to walk, bursting from forest copse to stream bed to sheltering stone, and vaulting through the broken tree line to attack the enemy.
Kakashi was in the forefront of the onrushing Shinobi hordes.
Scattered fire began to come from aliens who had spread out into clumps of four or five.
They still weren't taking the enemy seriously. They scoffed at the leather clothing, glittering metal knives, and throwing stars.
It was the kind of mistake you could only pay for with your life.
The Shinobi had seen the full scope of damage laser cannon could do. It had not even been thirty minutes since the power of their city had been broken by it.
But one thing about Shinobi was that they learned fast.
It was why they still survived.
Vasuya's mercenaries by contrast had never met Shinobi.
They did so now as metal implements they considered dull and primitive began to reach their targets and the Shinobi began to calculate the rate of fire of the weapons used against them, the angle of trajectory and the degree of accuracy.
All of these problems solved in an instant, adapted against, Shinobi.
Jutsu began to rain down on both groups of invaders as skilled Jounin began to find the right timing between bursts of the enemy's automatic weapons to bring their greatest weapons to bear.
That was when it became a slaughter.
Kakashi watched as Fire, Water, Earth, Wind, Summons and Genjutsu took to the field of battle.
Out of the corner of his eye he saw the Monkey-King Summon of old man Hokage in staff form as the grizzled warrior waded deep into a body of thirty men and beasts dealing death with his Bo-staff.
His Sharingan whirred with activity as he sped through the chaos; eliminating particularly tough and or composed enemies with the assassination capabilities of his trusted Chidori.
He barely took notice of his fellow Shinobi pummeling enemies to death with bare fisted Taijutsu as he exacted his own price from the enemy, zipping around the battlefield without heed to exhaustion or regard for his own life, Kakashi became a talisman in Konoha that day that will always be remembered.
Even as it is remembered there that he slinked away in the end, despite all, stained with everlasting shame.
How long can I keep this going?
It didn't take long at all for him to find his answer, and when he found it he was not quite sure what he was supposed to do with it.
Till they are all dead and none remain.
A/N
"Edited."
- Darklighter