AN: Hi, thanks for the reviews! Again let me apologize for taking some time getting this chapter up - I've been busy. Wow . . . this chapter got cheesy, complete with references to the Star Wars Kinect game (I don't own a Kinect system, but the clips on YouTube are awesome).
"The Chaperones"
By EsmeAmelia
Chapter 10
The kids and parents all sat on the floor as the band played and the bikini-clad dancers performed. The dancers shook their hips and ran their hands over their own bodies in a rather suggestive manner, making Leia scrunch up her face in disgust, concentrating on keeping herself from vomiting.
"Is this really appropriate for children?" a mother asked.
"Why wouldn't it be?" Ms. Tano said nonchalantly. "It's just dancing."
"It's vile . . ." Leia muttered, clutching her mouth before glancing to the side, making sure Han wasn't too interested. "It's degrading to women."
Rotta said something in Huttese which the droid translated as, "The Incredible Rotta says that his dancing girls are well-paid and want for nothing, so it is not degrading to women at all."
Leia rolled her eyes.
Meanwhile Jaina was grinning as she hugged her legs. "This looks like fun. Maybe I'll try it when I grow up."
"If you do I'll disown you," Leia muttered.
"Oh come on, Mom," said Jaina. "Keep an open mind. Just cause you didn't like the bikini doesn't mean everyone has to."
Instead of answering her daughter, Leia glanced again at Han, who was shifting his eyes, as if making an effort not to look at the dancers. His eyes met Leia's and he gave her a sheepish grin, as if apologizing for his male instincts.
"This is boring," Medla said loudly.
With that the Hutt shouted something in his native tongue. Leia couldn't understand the words, but she could definitely understand the tone.
"The Amazing Rotta wishes to know why the human thinks his dancers are boring," the droid translated.
"Cause it is," Melda snapped. "It's just a bunch of ladies in bathing suits dancing to bad music."
Rotta gave a scream that echoed around the palace, followed by several curses in Huttese. The women stopped dancing and the band stopped playing, all glaring at Melda.
"The Mighty Rotta demands that the girl apologize at once," the protocol droid said.
"Why?" said Melda, her nose turned upward, and her arms folded.
Rotta said something harsh, which the droid translated as, "Because the Great Rotta will imprison you if you do not."
"WHAT?" Ryo exclaimed, jumping to his feet. "No one touches my Melda, you hear?" He stormed up to the Hutt. "Not even some big stinky Hutt."
Rotta gasped, along with his dancers, his musicians, and almost everyone else.
Han grinned up at the Hutt. "Well, Mighty Rotta, if you wanna imprison this guy and his bratty daughter, you can bet I'll support you."
Ms. Tano stood up and patted the Hutt's back. "Now come on Rotta, this girl and her father are in my charge. If you imprisoned them, I'd get in trouble with the girl's mother for not bringing them home safely. You don't want Aunty Soka to get in trouble, do you?"
The Hutt seemed to ponder this for a while before nuzzling against Ms. Tano's arm and purring in Huttese.
"The Amazing Rotta says that for his Aunty Soka's sake, he will not imprison the girl," the droid translated. "However, I would heartily advise apologizing to him anyway. It will improve your favor with The Incredible Rotta."
Melda sighed loudly. "Fine, I'm sorry."
"Great!" Ms. Tano exclaimed. "Now we can watch the rest of the dance!"
Leia groaned.
. . .
Amazingly, the group managed to get through the day without anyone being imprisoned, even with Tad insisting that Han take at least ten holos of him with the frozen Han replica and Allura and Kai getting into a fight that involved pulling each other's headstalks. Despite the fact that they kept their skins intact, Leia and Han were still on edge until they were safely back at the hotel and they were sure none of Rotta's servants had followed them.
"Mom," Jaina asked at dinner, "we're going to the holoarcade tonight, right?"
"HOLOARCADE?" Jacen, Anakin, and Tad exclaimed together.
"Yeah," said Kai. "Too bad you guys get locked in your room."
"But that's not fair!" cried Anakin. "Dad's the one who took us to the cantina!"
Han rolled his eyes.
"Yeah," said Jacen. "Why should we miss out on the holoarcade cause of something Dad did?"
"Cause it was your idea," Han muttered.
Leia gave a light sigh. "Well, you'd have to talk to Ms. Tano about that."
"Talk to me about what?" asked the teacher, passing their table with perfect timing as usual.
"We wanna go to the holoarcade!" Anakin piped up.
"Ooooh," Ms. Tano said in a knowing voice. "Well I'm afraid your father's punishment is still in effect."
"But can't we go?" begged Jacen, making his eyes big, though not as big as Anakin could make his. "Dad's the one being punished, right?"
"Pleeeeeeaaaaaasssee?" Anakin was doing the eye thing that made it almost impossible to resist his requests.
Ms. Tano smiled down at the children. "Well, I suppose that if your mother were willing, she could take you all to the holoarcade while your father stays in your room."
"YEAH!" Jacen, Anakin, and Tad shouted at once.
"But wait," Tad said after a moment, "can't Han go?"
"You call him Mr. Solo, Tad, and no, he can't go," said Ms. Tano, folding her arms. "Punishments are useless if they're lifted because of a little inconvinience, you know that. If I gave a student detention and then lifted it because he wanted to play in the holoarcade, that wouldn't teach him much, would it?"
"Yeah," Han muttered, "cause after all, it's your job to teach me."
Ms. Tano shot a tiny glare at Han before continuing. "If he just gets his punishment lifted, he'll never learn not to take younglings to a cantina."
"Now WAIT a sec!" Han exclaimed, leaping to his feet. "Where the hell were you when we were fightin' in the war? Oh right, hiding."
"And where were you when I was fighting in the Clone Wars?" Ms. Tano snapped back. "Oh right, you were a youngling yourself, and undoubtedly a troublemaker. No wonder you're in such desperate need of discipline now."
Han grumbled several things Ms. Tano would scold him for if she were able to hear them.
. . .
As was planned, Han was locked in his room after dinner while Leia took Jaina, Jacen, Anakin, Tad, Kai, and Allura to the holoarcade, all of whom had a bunch of coins jingling in their pockets. It's all right, Leia, she thought to herself. You're just in charge of six kids at a holoarcade, what could go wrong?
The holoarcade was dim and noisy, with games lined up in several rows that branched out and crisscrossed with nothing that resembled a logical layout. Once the group entered the room, the children scattered so fast that Leia could have sworn that they teleported away. After rolling her eyes, the princess went looking for them, figuring that she would be running after them the entire time they were here.
She found Allura by the prize stand, staring longingly up at a toy X-Wing hanging from the ceiling. "Mrs. Organa Solo," said, yanking on Leia's arm with one hand and pointing up at the X-Wing with the other, "I wanna get that!"
Leia figured this was better than the girl throwing a tantrum, so she asked the man running the stand, "Excuse me, how much is that X-Wing?"
The man smirked. "Sorry, it's not for sale. You've gotta win 500 tickets to get that."
Allura began yanking on Leia's arm again. "Then come on, I gotta win 500 tickets!"
Leia rolled her eyes again as Allura dragged her into the sea of games.
. . .
Leia and Allura found Kai pounding away at the Whack-A-Wampa game, beating up on the Wampas as if they were real instead of little replicas.
"Hey Kai," said Allura, "what'cha doing?"
"Shut UP!" Kai snapped, not taking her eyes off the Wampas popping in and out of their cave-holes. "Must . . . beat . . . high . . . score!"
"Can you win tickets from this game?" asked Allura.
"Yeah," said Kai, still whacking away, "and I'm gonna win the most tickets and get that X-Wing at the prize stand."
"But I want that X-Wing!" Allura shouted.
Kai dove on top of the Wampas who were all popping out at once. "Well I want it more and I'm gonna get it, so there!"
"NOT IF I GET IT FIRST!" Allura yelled.
"Guys . . . I'm sure they have more than one X-Wing," said Leia, but of course the sisters either didn't hear her or refused to listen to her.
Kai was pounding the Wampas with both hands and her head. "I'm gonna win more tickets than you!"
"No you're not!" With that, Allura grabbed her sister's headstalks and yanked back, causing Kai to cry out and miss the Wampas, ending her game.
"LOOK WHAT YOU DID!" Kai yelled, attracting the attention of the other arcade patrons.
"All RIGHT, you two," Leia said, putting her hands on their shoulders to keep them from attacking each other. "Now you don't want to get thrown out of here, do you? If either of you want even the slightest chance of winning that X-Wing, you'll calm down right now, understand?"
The sisters gave Leia their customary glares, but after a moment they did nod.
"Good," said Leia, letting go of them. "Now let's go find the others."
. . .
They found Jacen and Anakin at one of the claw machines, each of whom already had an armful of toys from the machine, despite the fact that claw machines were designed to tantalize children with the promise of a prize and then cheat them out of their money.
"Hey Mom!" Anakin called, holding up a toy bantha while nearly dropping the three other toys in his arms. "Look what I got!"
"I . . . see," said Leia, looking from Anakin to Jacen and back again. "You used the Force to get those, didn't you?"
"Of course," said Jacen. "How else were we supposed to get any prizes?"
"Can I have one?" Allura asked.
"No," said Jacen. "We won them fair and square!"
"No you didn't!" snapped Kai. "You cheated!"
"That MACHINE'S the one that cheats!" said Anakin, smirking at her.
"But I WANT one!" Allura's eye were already filling with tears.
Leia sighed. "Look, if you each give me one of your coins I'll use the Force to win each of you one of those toys."
"Why should we give you OUR coins?" Kai's face was horrified, as if Leia had asked her to give up a body part.
Leia took a deep breath, folding her hands in an attempt to be inviting. "Because Jacen and Anakin got those prizes with their coins and it wouldn't be fair if you got extras."
"You're not getting MY coins!" shouted Allura, squeezing her pockets as if she thought Leia would steal her precious money.
"Fine," said Leia. "Then you can miss out on the prize."
"You're MEAN!" the two sisters yelled together.
Leia sighed. "I'm going to find Jaina and Tad. You can come if you want."
Allura kept glaring up at Leia, but she followed, perhaps because she still had her heart set on winning the X-Wing before her sister and she thought Leia's Force abilities might still come in handy.
. . .
Tad and Jaina were at the Dance Dance Rebellion game, which made Leia flinch slightly before approaching them. She had heard that a game company was using their images for a dancing game, but she had never seen the results. Actually, she had been trying to avoid seeing the results since they were sure to be the cringe-inducing kind of embarrassing.
"Hey Mom!" Jaina called, waving over at her. "Come look!"
Leia reluctantly approached her daughter. She and Tad were between levels, scrolling through the available Rebellion heroes and Empire villains that were available to play. "Come on Mom, come on!" said Jaina.
"This is the best game ever!" Tad squealed, which could only mean that Han was somehow involved.
Sure enough, there was a pair of Han holograms in front of them, one for each player, spreading out their arms as if inviting the kids to dance (which of course they were). Jaina and Tad were grinning, bouncing slightly as they prepared to dance.
Once the dance started, Leia couldn't keep her eyes from bulging. She wasn't sure which was stranger - the dancing Han holos or the song with the chorus that went, "I'm Solo, I'm Han Solo, I'm Han Solo, I'm Han Solo, Solo . . ." Jaina and Tad were singing along, keeping in steps with the dance moves that had names like, "Trash Compactor" and "Solo Pose." Leia didn't know whether to blush in embarrassment or start laughing.
"Wasn't that aweseome?" Tad exclaimed once the song was over.
"It was . . . interesting," said Leia.
"Mom, look at your level!" said Jaina, inserting a coin and scrolling to Leia's image. Once Jaina selected the level, two holos of Leia in the slave bikini from Jabba's palace popped up, causing the real Leia's eyes to bulge.
"WHY DOES EVERYTHING THAT USES MY IMAGE PUT ME IN THAT STUPID BIKINI?!" Leia yelled, causing everyone at the nearby games to turn heads.
"Mom," said Jaina, already dancing with her mother's mostly-naked image, "you're making me break step!"
Leia sighed and took Allura's hand. "Come on Allura, let's find something to help you win that X-Wing." And get me as far away from that game as possible, she thought.
. . .
"Mrs. Organa Solo," said Allura, "do Jaina and Tad like each other?"
Leia was looking among the games, trying to find one where it might be somewhat easy to win 500 tickets. "Well of course they do," she said. "I mean, they seem to be friends and all."
"No," said Allura. "Do they like like each other?"
Leia breathed in through her teeth. "Aren't you a little young to talk about that?"
Allura ignored her, instead skipping up to a game. "I wanna play this!"
The game in question consisted of a holographic ball covered with different numbers and a single button. The numbers on the ball would highlight in rapid succession (with a string of loud beeps) and apparently whichever number was highlighted when the player pressed the button would be the number of tickets they'd get.
"This will be easy to win," said Allura, and sure enough, there was the number 500 in the assortment of numbers. She inserted a coin and positioned her hand over the button, tensed up for when the critical number would highlight, and Leia hoped for both their sakes that she'd get it.
Allura hit the button.
And the machine spit out two tickets.
"WHAT?" Allura yelled.
Leia took a deep breath, attempting to send Allura soothing thoughts through the Force, though it didn't seem to be working. "It's okay, Allura," she said as sweetly as possible, "you can try again."
So Allura tried again, and again, and again, but every time she fell just short of the 500 and got just two tickets. After the fifth try, she kicked the machine and immediately burst into tears. "I CAN'T DO IT!" she sobbed.
Leia quickly put one hand on the little girl's shoulder and used the other to wipe her eyes. "Allura, Allura, you can't kick the machine like that, you might break it."
"Well it DESERVES to be broken when it won't give me my tickets!" Allura wailed.
Leia sighed. "Look, how about I try it? Maybe with my Jedi reflexes I can get you those tickets."
"I'm NOT giving you my coins!" said Allura, folding her arms.
"Do you want the X-Wing or not?"
Allura glared up at her for a moment, but then with a sigh she reached into her pocket and gave Leia a coin. "Okay, get me those tickets."
Leia breathed in as she inserted the coin, letting the Force flow through her. She watched the highlighting numbers dance around the sphere, then when the Force told her to do so, she pushed the button.
And once again got two tickets.
"WHAT?" Leia shouted, almost in exactly the same manner as Allura. "But . . . how . . . the Force!"
"THIS GAME CHEATS!" Allura yelled.
"Let me try that again," said Leia, this time putting one of her own coins in the machine.
. . .
Allura and Leia took turns on the game until they both ran out of coins, and all the tickets accumulated was only enough for a small novelty bracelet, which of course made Allura break down crying. She was still crying when they regrouped with the others and kept crying all the way to Han's room, where Ms. Tano was waiting for them at the door.
"Have you been guarding Han all this time?" Leia asked in exasperation.
Ms. Tano ignored her, instead stooping down to Allura's level. "Allura sweetie, what's wrong?"
"The game cheated!" Allura wailed. "I wanted to win this cool X-Wing but all I could get was this stupid bracelet!" She held up the hand where the offending item was around her wrist.
"Well that's a very pretty bracelet," Ms. Tano cooed, stroking the prize. "You don't have to cry about it."
"Yeah," said Kai. "You think you got it bad? I only got enough tickets for a piece of candy!"
"You got CANDY?" Allura sobbed louder. "I didn't get enough tickets for candy!"
"Mom, can we go to our room now?" said Anakin. "They're getting too loud!"
"Tell me about it," muttered Jaina.
"Well, can they?" asked Leia.
After wiping Allura's eyes, Ms. Tano stood back up. "Of course," she said, unlocking Han's door.
Once in the room, the group found Han slumped over his bed, snoring loudly. Leia was about to whisper to the kids that they shouldn't wake him, but Jaina leaped onto the bed before she could do so.
"DAD!" she yelled, shaking her father. "Dad, Dad, wake up!"
"Whaaa?" Han slurred, blinking up at his daughter.
"Dad, guess what, you and Mom are in a dancing game!"
Han raised his eyebrow at Leia, indicating that he had no idea what Jaina was talking about.
"Yeah!" said Tad, leaping onto the bed next to Jaina. "You should play it, Han, it's AWESOME just like you!"
"Dancing . . . game?" Han asked.
"Uh, yeah," said Leia. "Remember how that game company was interested in using our images?"
"Uh . . ."
"You don't remember, do you?" Leia sighed. "Well don't worry, your biggest fan will tell you all about it. Meanwhile I've got to take the girls to our room." She leaned over and kissed her husband's forehead. "Jaina, say goodbye to your father."
"Bye Dad!" said Jaina, jumping off the bed and joining Leia, Kai and Allura, who was of course still sobbing.
Once they were gone, Han turned to his sons and Tad, all of whom had mischievous smiles on their faces.
"All right, what's this dance game I'm hearin' about?"