Rating: PG. For "Star Wars" goofiness.

Feedback: Very, very much appreciated. In fact, it's mandatory.

Distribution: If you want it, by all means. . . Just let me know first, I'd like to know where my work goes so I can brag about it.

Spoilers: Um... Spoilers? Did you not read the summary?

Disclaimer: Not mine. Everything Buffy and gang belong to the Joss-god and everything Star Wars belongs to the Supreme Overlord George W. Lucas. How I know his middle initial, I do not know, but it makes his name sound fancier nonetheless.

Author's Note: More reviews, people! Other than that I would like to say thank you to all those who are reading this insane byproduct of my defective imagination and are actually enjoying what I type. I'm sorry this one took so long, but it was a bit difficult to develop the Buffyverse version of the Force and the story of Connor's father so that it was actually believable.

*****

"Ow."

"Willow! Thank the stars we found you!"

"Ow."

"Are you okay? Are you hurt?"

"Ow."

"I'll take that as a yes."

"Ow."

"Do you need help up?"

"Ow... I mean no. I'm fine. You go on ahead. I can survive without a left arm and no sense of direction in the middle of a barren wasteland where fashion hungry monsters roam in search of shoe sales and victims they can critique on their out-of-taste sense of fashion."

"I'll take that as sarcasm."

Mock surprise appeared on Willow's cut face. "No!"

Ripper broke into the argument in the nick of time; that is, before someone was deactivated, decapitated or shut down permanently. "Could we quit the arguing, PLEASE? I'd like to get out of here before said fashion hungry monsters return."

"I agree with old Ripper." The Britishman snarled. "It's high time we high-tail it out of this joint." Connor looked at Ripper, whose snarl had switched to a fake smile the moment the boy turned around. "Can we head back to your place?"

"Seeing as how you have nowhere else to go because your aunt and uncle are probably de-"

Ahem.

"Right, then. Never mind. You may come back to my place if you wish."

"Really? You mean it?"

"I might not live to regret it, but yes."

*****

"Nice place," Connor complimented with a whistle of approval. "Decorate it yourself?"

"Well, actually..." A hint of a blush tinted Ripper's cheeks before he came to his manly senses. "My, um, friend decorated..." He nodded. "Yeah..."

"Ahem." Eyes turned Willow's direction. "Can I go to sleep now? I mean, I *did* just fall fifty feet off the side of a large building."

"Sissy."

"Okay, Ms. Smarty Jumpsuit. You go drop off a building and see how you feel afterward. In fact, I might just take that task into my own hands..."

This time, it was Connor who intervened before things got violent. "Willow, just..." The boy reached the back of her head and found the on/off switch in the mass of red hair. Silence at last.

Ripper, in the meanwhile, had been deep in thought, cleaning his glasses. "It's awfully convenient we have crossed paths, young Skywalker."

Movie coincidences, gotta love 'em.

"Why's that?"

"It's just..." He continued to clean as his thoughts consumed him once more.

"You're spacing, Rupes."

Ripper shook his head to rid of the consumption. "Right. Sorry. I was just wondering... What do you know of your father?"

"M-my father?" Connor had never truly thought about the man he only knew through word of his uncle's mouth. Besides, most of the very little information Wesley had given his nephew was obviously made up. His uncle was known to be a stutterer when lying and every first letter to every word about Connor's father was doubled, if not tripled. "Not much, really. Just that he was a drunken ne'er-do-well and then was found dead in some abandoned alleyway."

Ripper reapplied his spectacles with a chuckle. "Trust Wesley to have some backbone and tell you the truth."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"You honestly believe the story your stuttering git of an uncle told you?"

Connor shrugged. "What else did I have to go with?"

"Good point." The older man leaned back in his wooden chair, an obvious sign that he was going to be there for a while. "First off, your father *wasn't* a drunken ne'er-do-well..." More quietly, he added, "... all the time. I mean, he was Irish..."

Finally, the real story. This piqued Connor's interest greatly, but there was something he had heard a long time ago that he had to hear now. "You fought in the Blood Wars?"

"And did I. I was a Champion, just like your father."

The dark-haired boy sighed forlornly. "I wish I knew him."

His elder winced, but not enough for the youth to see. "He was the best fighter in the galaxy and a damn fine one he was. Could decapitate, incinerate, and stake a vampire in less time it takes for you to yawn." The Brit looked down at his hands, as if they had something to say. "And a good friend." His hands no longer interested him. "Which reminds me..."

Rupert-Wan leaned forward out of his rocking chair and walked over to the cupboard nearby. After flipping the latch that kept the twin doors shut, Ripper pulled out a dusty, obviously long since unused box and put it on the table before his male guest. The box creaked open from rusty hinges as Ripper removed the wooden object from its resting place and placed it in the boy's outstretched hands.

"Your father wanted you to have this when you were old enough not to poke your eye out with it. Your uncle didn't want you to have it at all, afraid that you would follow old Rupert-Wan on some crazy crusade like your father did."

Forget the story piquing his interest; that was old hat. This ashen object resting in the palms of his hands was far more interesting. "What is it?"

"Goodness, Wesley really did shelter you from your father's world. That, my young friend, is a stake, the weapon of a Champion."

Connor clenched his right hand around the hilt of the weapon and stabbed an invisible foe inches in front of him. It was clear to Ripper that the boy was a natural talent.

"It's not fancy like a crossbow or as fun as a rocket launcher, but it gets the job done effectively in the hands of a true Champion. For as long as there have been people in this galaxy, the Champions were guardians of the peace and justice of the Old Republic." His voice took a more somber tone. "Before the Empire."

Like every child with a shiny, in Connor's case sharp, new toy and a very short attention span, he hadn't really listening. That is, until a cold thought entered his mind. Morbid curiosity forced him to ask.

"How did my father really die?"

Ripper knew he couldn't avoid the subject no matter how much he tried. "A young Champion named Darth Angelus, a pupil of mine until he was turned into a creature of the night, helped the Vampiric Empire hunt down and destroy the Champions. He betrayed and murdered your father, but not in some alleyway like Wesley told you." Now the older man found a spot on the wall fascinating. "The Champions are all but dead and buried now. Angelus had been seduced by the dark side of the Power."

"The Power?"

"In layman's terms, the Power is what gives a Champion his strength, his will to fight, whether that be for good or evil. The Power itself is an energy field that controls all living and undead things. It's everywhere, surrounding us. It's the glue that keeps the galaxy together."

A female voice entered the conversation after many minutes of staying silent, which Willow would call a record. "As fascinating as all this is, what with the dead guys and all..."

Ripper looked over to Dawn in the corner and grinned. "Now, let's see if we can't figure out what you are."

"What I am?" Dawn asked, offended at what the Britishman was implying. "I'm a droid, you old crumpet. What, did I suddenly grow some strange colored fur and--"

No one was listening to her tangent anymore. "She goes on like that. Probably a defect in her programming. Just ignore it."

"Happily."

"She seems to be carrying a message of some kind. I was only able to get some of it..."

While the men had been ignoring her, neither had noticed that Dawn had flipped the switch in her right pocket, activating, this time completely, the message. When the message appeared on the ground, Ripper kneeled before the miniature figure.

"I seem to have found it," he observed as the Princess's message commenced from the top.

"General Kenobi," the tiny Princess Summers bowed before Ripper as her plea began. "Years ago, you served my father, Hank, in the Blood Wars. Now he pleads for you to return to his aid once more in the fight against the Empire. I regret I can't be there, seeing as how Darth Arrogant has attacked my ship, so I have placed vital information to the welfare of the Rebellion with this Dawntoo unit. Dad will know how to retrieve it. Please, however you can, get this droid to my home planet as safe and as fast as possible. You're the last hope for the Alliance. Help me, Rupert-Wan Kenobi, you're my only hope." Once the all-too-familiar line had been spoken, the diminutive image flickered from existence.

The teen male glared at the droid in the corner and growled. "I violently dislike you."

Dawn replied with a wily grin, saying nothing in response.

Rupert-Wan went into thinking mode once more as the information he had just received sank in. Rising from his crouch, he came to a conclusion. "You have to learn the ways of the Power if you're coming with me to Los Angeles."

Connor hadn't really had a good laugh in a long, long while. Ripper's suggestion triggered something inside. "Los Angeles?" the boy choked out between bouts of laughter. "Are you kidding me? I can't go there. I've got to go home."

"I need your help, Connor," Rupert urged the boy. "I'm not as young as I used to be, you know."

"No kidding," the voice in the corner chimed.

"Look, Ripper, it's not like I don't want to go. I really, really do. Honestly. I hate the Empire, I'd do anything to bring it to its filthy grave once and for all, but I can't go with you." Connor looked at the ground, away from Ripper's eyes. "I don't travel well, for one thing. And... it's so far away."

"That's Wesley talking."

"Wesley," the raven haired sighed. "How am I going to even begin to explain all this?"

"Learn about the Power, Connor," the bespectacled one repeated.

Connor's argument was fruitless. His case was looking bleak. "Well, I can take you as far as the Doublemeat. I'm sure you can hitch a ride to the Downtown plaza or wherever you want to go."

"You must do what you feel is right."