Disclaimer: I do not own Star Wars.

AN: Even more late! This chapter was hard to write. And yes, as you can see-Felicio is not COMPLETELY useless.

Only a little bit.

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His target was a forty-five year old human male, named Dreed Kushre.

For five years now, the man continued to escape the judgement of the authorities and was involved not only with selling illegal machinery and drugs, but lately human slavery as well. The last one, Roth supposed, was a mistake since the Jedi Order was feeling especially strongly about the issue of slavery since that horrible messup at the Chorios system. And that's why when the rumours about the underground slavery organizations of Eriadu uniting reached the Jedi High council, Roth was ordered to catch Dreed, get information about other big shots planning to group up , and take care of the whole thing in general.
Although it wasn't said out loud, this was basically a long-term mission.

Normally, Roth would be excited to get such a complicated task and would spend months infiltrating the right groups and gaining just enough amount of information, but ever since he made the decision of taking Felicio Mancini as his padawan, everything changed. He wanted to observe the kid a bit before the actual Choosing, maybe even exchange a few words and with this mission in the way, Roth was not sure if his usual, silent approach would get the job done just in time for the Choosing exam. Besides it was the kid's last Choosing, too. Arriving too late may prove to be disastrous.

So as Roth turned off the datapad and stepped out of the ship to face the merciless Eriaduan heat, he decided to carry out this mission a little differently.

The direct way was ,after all, the quickest.

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Meditation or no meditation...Felicio was nervous as fuck.

"Alright, I'll count to five and then we'll get out, understood?"

"Y-yeah."

The brunette closed his eyes and concentrated on the flow of the Force. Malcolm could be a genius and all, but no way is Felicio going to blindly trust him and get caught by the crew of the ship. That would be pretty embarrassing, especially since they were so close to their actual goal- the cargo ship landed on Eriadu five minutes ago.
Despite sensing no threat, Felicio felt cold sweat on his back as he faced his partner in crime and stared at his lips, counting down the numbers. They were so close.

"Wait."
Flyte stopped in the middle of the countdown and looked at Felicio as if something just ocured to him.

"You DO have your lightsaber, right?"

"Yes, of course!"

the shorter boy answered back in a whisper and took it out, showing Flyte his current most prized possession.

"Wait...you've got to be kidding me...Is this the same one you used on our last practice?"
Flyte groaned and brought a hand to his forehead. He stared at the nervous boy in disbelief.

"Um, yeah, why?"

"That's not a lightsaber, that's an explosion waiting to happen! I can't believe Master Sieran let you use this, it's dangerous and unpredictable! Especially combined with your horrible fighting skills..." the pale youth sighed and shook his head, dismissing the whole subject.

"Nevermind. Just stay close behind me. Later when we get out of here, I will disassemble it and look at what went wrong." he finished with a tired voice and closed his eyes, concentrating on the presence of the crew once more.

EXCUSE ME??! Felicio was THIS CLOSE to punching that smug bastard in the face. 'Disassemble it and look at what went wrong'?? Sure, he knew that he had some trouble building his own lightsaber, but he succeeded in the end, didn't he? It worked well enough for him...hmpf, an explosion to happen...he WILL remember that...

"Ok. Five, four, three..." Felicio tried to clear all his thoughts but it seemed harder now that he was under pressure

"...two, one, go!"

Both boys abruptly stood up and ran. Felicio was very glad that the cargo ship was guarded by a Jedi knight only on their way TO the temple and not FROM...otherwise there would be a lot more complications, that's for sure. With luck, there is not a single Jedi on the entire planet since as far as he knows, Eriadu is not known for their love of law, procedures or the Jedi Order. Well...perhaps that attracts even more of them, Felicio didn't know.

Flyte in front of him suddenly stopped and pressed himself against the wall and motioned for him to do the same. Since Flyte was bigger, it took some time but as he leaned farther, Felicio could see a group of men (probably the crew members) talking and walking towards their hiding place.

What the hell?? They have no business there! The crystals have already been delivered so why do they need to look at an empty space? Damn, this SUCKS...

"Change of plans." Flyte hissed and turned around, dragging the brunette behind him. As they rounded a corner , he took out his lightsaber.

"We cut our way out."

"Are you CRAZY??"

Did selling all those drugs in the past damage Flyte's rational thinking abilities?

"We can't do that! They'll come here, see a frigging hole in the ship OBVIOUSLY done by a lightsaber, they blame the Jedi Order, they refuse to ship any more crystals, Jedi Council finds out,sees we're gone, puts two and two together and look what we have here! ANOTHER reason for them to chase us down! Why do you have to make it more complicated than it already is?"

Flyte stared at him with a surprised expression on his face, but Felicio couldn't bring himself to care. He was sick and tired of playing the stupid little farm boy and he didn't mind that he just blew his cover. He was planning on ditching Flyte as soon as he showed him around, anyway.

Recovering quickly, the taller boy straightened up and glared.

"So what do you propose we do? Let them catch us?"

"Look. Under NO CIRCUMSTANCES can they know that we are linked to the Jedi Order. Just let me handle this, ok? And when I do this..." Felicio crossed his fingers and made a little shaking movement with his hand "You use the Force and try to make us as unnoticeable and insignificant to the rest of the crew members as you can."

"Wait, what? Who do you think I am, a Master? And what did you mean by the 'rest of the cre-"

"They just TRY, alright? But try really hard. And hide that lightsaber! ...I will do the rest."

And with that, Felicio Mancini took a very deep breath, and with the most child-like and helpless voice he could muster, shouted

"HEEEEEELP!!!!!"

Flyte's expression of horror was quite amusing.

It was not even full ten seconds yet and Felicio could already sense at least five men about to enter the storage room, feelings of suspicion and concern present in each and every one of them. Already in his element, Felicio send a calming wave of emotions towards the group and felt them relax, the suspicion already fading into nothingness.

Felicio could not sense which of them had the weakest will, so going for the third one (since the first one, by being the one at the front, was showing the behaviour of a leader and those were always harder to control) he latched on to him like a guergon and made him emotionally separate from the rest. Then, when he felt confident on his hold on the guy, Felicio shakily stood up from his hiding place and faced the men. He was positive that none of them saw Flyte yet. Putting one of his hands behind his back, he crossed his fingers and shook them.

"Hey kid, what in th-"

"DADDY!!!"
Felicio shouted with happiness and completely ignoring the puzzled man that was about to ask him a question, he made a dash towards his 'daddy' and threw himself at the man. When he acted as surprised as the rest of the crew members, Felicio drew him closer and using as much Force as he could will himself to use, he whispered to the older man's ear
"I am your beloved son, right daddy? I got lost and you came to save me. You are my daddy. Now tell everyone."

The man's shoulders relaxed slightly and he hugged Felicio back, his sweaty hands on the boy's small back.

"Hey, Arvs, who the hell is that kid?"

Pulling away, Arvs was already grinning. "That's just my boy, false alarm, Jizz."

This seemed to satisfy the whole group but just in case, Felicio sent more calming emotions towards the crew until they were all smiling in amusement.

"Aaah, I didn't know you had a son, Arvs."

"He's a small little thing, ain't he?"

"Are you sure he's yours, man? He's way too pretty to be even related!"

At this the whole group laughed until Arvs affectionately patted Felicio on the head and with a proud face said "He takes after his mother. She was a beautiful thing, that one..."

This drew another series of responses, most of them whistles, cries of "Lucky dog!" and so on. Felicio felt very light-headed but managed to concentrate on the crew's emotions. "I'm so sorry, daddy. I wanted to go with you so bad and..."

"Ah, hush, it's alright son." Arvs responded and in the back of Felicio's mind, he wondered if the man subconsciously WANTED a son. It was just way too easy with him.
"So can we go now?"

He needed to be alone with the man as soon as possible. He tried to make him leave the rest of the group on his own, but it seemed that without actually saying the order out loud, the man was not going to do it. Felicio prided himself with his hidden ability of manipulating people through the Force but even he had his limits. Instead, Felicio took his 'father's' hand and together with the laughing group of men, he left the ship. With the threat of the men gone, Flyte should be able to take care of himself.

The heat attacked him almost instantly.

Sure, Felicio grew up in in a rather hot planet, but this heat was INTENSE. It was disgustingly humid but scorching at the same time and he felt like he was melting in his clothes.

"Keep that on, son. You don't want to get burned."
his 'father' stated as Felicio wanted to remove his heavy, brown cloak and instead, he put his hood up. The rest of the crew said something about going to a bar to celebrate their successful trip but Felicio made Arvs refuse their offer because he needed to spend time with his son. Perfect. The brunette decided to get as much out of his situation as possible and since the man was still under his control, with the sweetest voice he could muster, Felicio said

"Now give me your money, daddy. All of it."

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Fifteen minutes later, Arvs Hedra found himself standing in the middle of the Phelar park, with no recollection of how he got there. While most of his memories about his day were gone, he was left with the strangest urge to find a dark-haired wife, settle down, have a family of his own and an adorable little boy with whom he could travel the galaxy with.

It was only an hour after that he realized that all of his credits were gone.