SOS
Chapter IV
The sun was just about to dip below the horizon as he made his way through the main street of Konohagakure. He eagerly looked around, rubbing his hands together in excitement, and spotted his prey. With the expertise and precision of years of experience, he moved in for the kill…
"Hey, angel, am I dead? 'Cause I must be in heaven."
"Ugh."
Unfazed, he moved on.
"Excuse me, miss. I've lost my phone number. Could I have yours?"
"Creep."
And again, he moves onward.
"Pardon me, but according to the second law of thermodynamics, you're supposed to share your hotness with me."
This last attempt earned him a slap, and a nicely planted handprint left on his cheek. He sighed as he moved to the side of the road and leaned against a street lamp.
"What's the point of having a city with such fine women only to have them ignore you?"
"Well, that just makes them easier research subjects."
Wedge looked over his shoulder to see the speaker. An old man with long, spiky white hair sat with his back toward him at some sort of food stand.
"Whaddya want, Gramps? I'm busy."
"Is that any way to treat your senior?" Asked the old man, as he walked over to stand next to the ex-Jedi. He wore red and green robes, and sported a thick head protector with two stubs that resembled horns. Wedge also took note of the two thin red lines that ran from his eyes down to below his jaw line.
"I've been watching you," said the old man, as he took a bite out of what looked to Wedge like a squid-on-a-stick (which is exactly what it was), "and I see you have potential, if not tenacity. I've also noticed you may be a bit out of practice." He took another bite and chewed thoughtfully.
"I've been away for awhile," Wedge offered. He didn't want to explain again as to why he had been absent from human contact in general for so long.
"I'll bet." The man finished his squid, and straightened up. "Well, seeing as you are so promising," he stretched, "maybe I'll be able to show you a thing or two." He jerked his thumb over to a pair of attractive ladies, probably in their late twenties. "Watch this."
Wedge made no objection as the man walked toward his targets. He thought a little entertainment might alleviate a bit of the sting from his last slap. To his surprise, after the man had said a few words, the two women giggled, and walked off. The old man was rejected, but obviously in a much more graceful manner than Wedge had been.
"For an old geezer, that was pretty good. I'd buy you a drink if I had any money."
The old man laughed. "Well, I should give thanks to my long years of training. Anyway, like I said, you have potential. Got a name?"
"Wedge."
The man frowned. "Wedge? Strange name, but I suppose I've heard worse. But anyhow, it's obvious you are new to this village. Where're ya from?"
Wedge groaned inwardly. The dreaded question had come. Couldn't that big-breasted woman with the blond locks send out a memo, or something? Explaining the whole thing once had been an ordeal (although he and Bao-Dur had left out a few choice details). How many times would he have to do it? He decided to wing it.
"Uh…nowhere important."
"Small farming village, or something? Whatever. You wouldn't happen to be a ninja, would you?"
Here, Wedge found an opportunity to gain information while not seeming to come off as a total idiot. "No, why?"
"Your stance says many things, boy." The man's face and tone suddenly became cryptic, and Wedge found himself listening intently. "You aren't a stranger to combat. That's obvious." He pointed toward Wedge's hands and necks. "I can see many scars here and there on your body. They aren't that deep or visible, but I can see that they've been put there by a blade. Am I right?"
It was true. Wedge had found himself at the less inviting end of a vibroblade many times in his life, even though he didn't like to admit it. Even Jedi make mistakes sometimes.
Wedge stayed silent for a moment before saying, "You know, I never caught your name."
The old man smiled and stood to his full height (and to Wedge's surprise, he was rather tall), and laughed. "Caught your interest, eh?" he laughed again, loudly. "Well, I'd love to stay and chat, but I've got some business to attend to." And with that, the man left.
Wedge didn't stop him. He had a feeling that they would probably be seeing each other soon anyway, not that it was hard to miss a dirty old man with long, spiky white hair. He sighed. It was getting late, and he might as well turn in for the night.
It had only been there for a day, and he already knew the way to his apartment by heart. He really wanted to hurry back and talk with Bao-Dur, since he had spent the whole day looking through the wreckage for anything to salvage. Wedge figured that anything, even a half-spent energy cell, would probably be of use in this situation.
However, Wedge also wanted to spend time just walking. Moving his legs always helped him think, and thinking is exactly what he needed to do as he argued with himself about the events that were about to take place. As a given, he needed money if he was going to get anywhere on this planet (which caused a hefty sigh from him, since traveling to an unknown planet far away from explored space didn't do anything to help him escape his ever-persistent money problems). To get money, he would obviously have to work for it. And as for work, well, a mechanic like Bao-Dur wasn't really in demand, so they would have to utilize their greatest and best-known skill: fighting.
But Wedge had been in a bind like this before. On Telos, he desperately needed transport to the planet surface, and the only way to get it was through a group of well-meaning but very opportunistic Ithorians. They practically forced him to go through a long series of odd-jobs before handing over a shuttle (which, by the way, crashed on its first flight), and if Wedge hated anything, it was being used.
And that was exactly what Wedge invited as he signed that form to take the Jounin exam. If he was still a Jedi, the real fight would be whether or not this whole operation was moral or not. Fighting for money? Jedi's shouldn't be considered mercenaries, after all. But Wedge wasn't a Jedi anymore, and he had no problem with going against his former code (to an extent, that is). Plus, he really had no choice. He had no leads, no contacts, and no knowledge about this place. From what Tsunade had explained, being a ninja was the fastest way around, and if his trust for the ninjas started to thin, then he would have no choice but to jump ship.
He was so engrossed in his inward battle that he very nearly blindsided a girl standing on the corner. He looked up just before he hit, and his reflexes took over by throwing him out of the way and into a group of trash cans on the other side of the narrow alley. He winced as he expected an "Are you okay?" and a series of other questions, and he was in no mood to give an answer. After a moment of silence, he finally got up and looked for the girl he had almost taken out. She hadn't moved from her previous spot, halfway behind a building and watching with interest at something that was occurring further down that road. He couldn't resist. He quietly walked up behind the pink-haired teenager and looked over her head. What he saw was not really what he expected. About forty yards away, a tall boy with a nearly completely orange outfit (save the sleeves, shoulders and headband, which were black) and a shorter woman with long, black hair wearing tan and purple. The girl seemed rather short, but only because her posture could use a bit of an improvement, and looked as if she was struggling to say something. The boy could only smile nervously and scratch his head through his spiky blond hair, and try his best to understand whatever she was saying. Wedge looked down, and noticed that whoever he had joined in with spying started to snigger. Wedge raised an eyebrow.
"Friend of yours?"
The pink-haired girl in the short red dress jumped, and nearly yelped, had not she clamped her hands over her mouth first. She spun around to look at the man in the reddish-brown robes. She checked behind her to make sure the two had not heard or seen anything, then whispered:
"Who are you?"
"Me? Who's asking?"
"Why'd you sneak up on me?"
"Why are you spying on them?"
"I'm not spying, just a little…reconnaissance."
"That's called spying. Why?"
The girl checked behind her again before reaching up and grasping the collar of the man's robes and pulled down. As soon as she had him down to eye level, she pointed to the girl with black hair.
"That girl there, see, has a huge crush on that guy she's talking to. Everyone knows it but him. I teamed up with some of my friends to get them to meet by accident and hopefully, she'll be able to say her feelings."
Wedge cocked an eyebrow. Although he didn't have anything against confessions of love, something along these lines was highly cliché where he was from.
He watched for a minute before asking: "What's your name?"
"Huh? Sakura…you?
"Wedge."
Sakura blinked. "Wedge? That's a strange name."
"So I've heard." He pointed to the girl. "Who's she?"
Sakura crouched back down, glad to be back on topic. "Hinata. Hyuuga Hinata. She's had a crush on Naruto there ever since she was eight."
"Eight? Early start, isn't it?"
"Ssh!"
Sakura desperately waved her hand, silencing him. The girl, Hinata, was apparently reaching a climax in her nervous speech. Wedge couldn't make out any words, but he could tell she was about to say something big. That is, until a gigantic white dog came barreling into her. Wedge was stunned.
"What the…"
"Oh, hell."
Following the dog ran another teenager, dressed in a grayish jacket. He said something to Naruto, probably some sort of greeting, and helped Hinata to her feet. Hinata quickly bowed and left with the newcomer.
"Dammit, Kiba, of all the times…"
"Uh, what just happened?"
Sakura shook her head. "It doesn't matter. The operation was a failure. Back to square one."
"Right. I've had enough." Wedge said as he started to get up. He watched Naruto stand there for a moment longer, obviously confused, and then turn around and start to stroll down the street, probably just brushing the whole event off without a clue of what kind of impact it could have had. "Maybe I'll see you around, uh…Sakura. Later."
"Wait! You're not going to help out?"
Wedge gave her a look. "No. It's not my business. If Hinata has something to say that badly, then she'll eventually come out and say it."
Sakura scowled. "And I thought that you were different from the other guys. Looks like you don't care either…"
"Gee." Wedge rolled his eyes. "Sorry to disappoint."
About ten minutes later, Wedge opened the door to the apartment and slumped into the soft, leather sofa.
"Hello, General." Bao-Dur chimed from his usual spot by the dented up workbench. At the moment he was happily using his hydrospanner on something or other, probably from the ship.
"Hey. Find anything useful?"
"Oh, a few things. Overall, that ship probably won't ever fly again, but there was a whole lot of stuff we overlooked. Stuff like this."
Bao-Dur put down the hydrospanner and presented the object with relish. In his hands, he held a lightweight balanced repeating blaster rifle that looked as if it had never seen a crash landing in its entire life. You might as well have just got it from the factory.
"Ha, ha! That's incredible, it looks brand new!" Wedge smiled mischievously. "I can't wait to see you use it in the jounin test. This is gonna be great!" He rubbed his hands together in excitement, and looked at his comrade. The Iridonian had already gone back to work, tinkering with something or other.
"Hey…you shouldn't ignore people like that…"
"I'm sorry General, but we both have to get ready for this 'exam'. I need to make a few adjustments to some things I'll be using. Why don't you go meditate or something?"
Even though Wedge knew the comment was meant to get him to leave, he was just too tired to get annoyed. Meditation sounded great right then. No doubt tomorrow would be a very interesting day.
