Act 2: Chapter 8 - The Child (Part 1)
Back on Earth...
Familiar feminine feet touches the water in the bath tub and the naked girl (her cute butt cheeks shown) lowers herself into the warm water.
Ruiko Saten is enjoying her morning bath as she relaxes in the soothing water, smiling.
"Ahhh. A nice bath before the start of the day." Saten comments aloud in her bathroom. "Just the way I like it."
It has been almost a week since she and her friends have met Theron. Normally, the friendship bonding takes some time to building up. But on the other hand, both Saten and Theron quickly became friends like the whole shenanigan with the Empire never happened. And with her discovering about being Force sensitive, the urban legend hunter no longer needs to worry about being powerless. She might not be an Esper and will forever be a Level 0, but at least she has power and can do some good with it.
This got Saten giggling with excitement of having a power again since the Level Upper. However, she is left unsure about Theron's proposition in training her. She's excited but at the same time, scared. If she accepts, then there's no backing out and the Empire will come after her with the possiblity of becoming their slave. No. She won't let that happen to herself. She'll never be their slave. She'll use the Force to protect her home, friends, family, and even Theron.
Saten gasps as her face turns red, now all flustered.
"W-Why am I thinking of his name that way?!" She asks herself aloud while covering her face. "I don't want to think something so lewd and perverted when I'm around him! I'm not THAT shameless!"
She then perks her head up with curiosity, no longer blushing for now.
"Speaking of him, I wonder what he's doing right now?" She wonders with a finger on her chin, immediately changing the subject.
Yep. Saten has clearly changed the subject. Not sure how Uiharu tolerates this kind of thing from her best friend.
...
Argos
As the dust storm continues passing through the old building, Theron is just cleaning his own blaster pistol to pass up the time. Meanwhile, the droid has finished recharging and took the Jedi's place to keep watch so that the latter can prepare his weapons before they move out.
As for the child, the fifty-year-old infant looks on at Theron with curiosity in his mind. It senses the teen's conflicted thoughts without the latter even realizing it and the former also senses hidden wounds. The child climbs out of the crib and walks up to his side. It then reaches out with its hand to him.
Theron finally notices the child as the latter begins closing its eyes, readying to do something. However, Theron quickly stops the child and picks it up in his hands before putting it back in its crib. The Jedi then goes back to sitting down by the wall and checks his new rifle again.
Then, he hears cooing from the child and looks to see it next to him again, trying to reach out to Theron. He sighs and picks the child up and puts it back in the crib. The child looks up at him with those innocent eyes and tilts its head, wondering what he's doing next.
Surprisingly, Theron closes the top hatch of the crib and the teen turns around toward HK-47.
"Hey. Has the storm passed?" Theron asks the droid.
"Answer: Yes. It's best to head back to the town to receive payment for our work."
"Alright, you find us a landspeeder. We have to bring this thing along."
"As you wish." The droid complies as he leaves the room.
Theron then contacts R4 and his astro droid picks up. Theron explains what he's been doing and tells him meet him at the edge of the north ridge.
Theron then programs the crib to follow him and he heads outside of the building.
"I thought I told you to find us a landspeeder."
"Explanation: I did. Unfortunately, you must've accidentally took out its engines with that turret you hijacked earlier."
Theron sighs frustratingly at his own stupidity.
"Damn it. I guess were walking then."
"But sir, we could take the speeder bike."
"We can't carry a child on a bike." Theron argues. "Too risky. I'll go on foot. You take the bike, and go on ahead. I'll meet at the inn."
The droid doesn't say a word and hops ontp the bike before speeding away. Theron looks to his side to see the crib and opens the top for the child to see what's going on.
He sighs to himself and wonders what he's gotten into.
...
A few minutes later, Theron reaches his rendezvous point at the north ridge's border. But when he climbs up the last hill looking over the horizon with the child in tow, Theron sees something that he literally despises for good reason as they are towing his ship and astromech into their huge sand crawler.
"Fucking Jawas..." He mutters in disgust and complete annoyance, now already use to cussing in Earth words for three years.
The one rule you shouldn't break about being friends with Theron is that you should NEVER steal from him. EVER.
Knowing that R4 is his best friend and only ride to take him off world is being stolen, Theron crouches down and takes out his rifle before looking into the scope, aiming at one of the Jawas.
This was no ordinary blaster rifle he's holding in his hands. When he pulled the trigger, Theron fires a yellow blast at the Jawa from a distance, disintegrating the little thief with only its cloak remaining.
The child looks on with curiosity as its ears dropped down and its eyes widened in a cute innocent way.
As for the Jawas, they started screaming and beginning running back to their sand crawler. Theron creepily grins in satisfaction as he disintegrates another one and another.
"Die, you rats!" Theron shouts in his head while laughing.
He sees another Jawa randomly shooting its ion blaster at Theron to no success and ends up being disintegrated as well.
Suddenly, the sand crawler starts driving away along with R4 and Theron's ship. Not wanting to lose them, Theron quickly runs up to its rear and opens fire on the exhaust pipes of the vehicle which has no effect.
"Shit! I forgot disintegrators work on organic life forms." He facepalms at his own stupidity.
Theron places his rifle back onto his back and starts sprinting after the sand crawler with the child's crib falling not behind. He the jumps to the side and begins to climb but the Jawas are onto him as they poke their heads out of their mobile fortress and mischievously whisper to themselves. Then all of the sudden, the sand crawler moves to the side towards a rock wall. Theron notices in shock and climbs to the side just in time before the crawler scraps through the wall.
The Jedi quickly gets up and starts climbing again the old fashioned way when Jawas start throwing stuff on him to get him off their crawler. He gets a bonk to the head by a huge object and an electric shock from a Jawa poking out the window but Theron retaliates by punching the Jawa away and pulls him out, who falls to his death screaming.
Theron notices the Jawas trying to pull off the object he's climbing on to reach the top and he falls off, with the Jawas believing they succeeded. However, as one of them looks to the side, a familiar hand grabs him that turned out to be Theron and he pulls the Jawa off, who screams before his death.
The Jedi finally reaches the top of the sand crawler, only for a bunch of Jawas waiting for him, ion blasters trained on him. It was an ambush!
Theron wasn't fast enough to quickdraw and the Jawas blasted him with electricity, painfully electrocuting him.
He leans backwards and completely falls of the crawler and hits the sandy ground hard, completely knocking him out as the Jawas' sand crawler drives away with R4 and the ship.
The child caught up to the unconscious teen and innocently looks on at him, wondering if he's alright.
A few minutes later, Theron gasps loudly as he instantly wakes up. Looking at the direction the Jawas went off to, he turns to his left to see the child still in his crib and in perfect condition.
Theron gets back up and walks back to the spot where his droid and ship was stolen. He notices a pile of small parts lying around. Angered, Theron ignites his lightsaber and slashes a nearby boulder to vent out his frustration as he loudly roars in rage.
...
Earth
Saten gets out of her bathroom with a small towel wrapped around her naked body and another covering her wet hair as she starts to sense a disturbance.
"This disturbance... It's very familiar." She says to herself. "Is that Theron? If it is, I'm literally sensing his emotions?"
Her eyes widen when she figures out what she's sensing, despite not knowing she can sense him a few parsecs away.
"He's angry. Very angry." Saten concludes to herself before expressing concern for her friend. "I hope he's okay."
She wants to help him with what he's angry about but the girl is still unaware that he's off world somewhere.
...
Argos
Theron exhausts himself after turning the boulder into a pile of rubble. He shuts off his lightsaber and sheathes it back onto his belt before looking at the child, who innocently whimpers with a cute sound in its voice as it feels really sorry for him.
Theron sighs and picks the child back up and puts it in its crib again before they take off into walking the long way back to the settlement.
To be continued...