(Edit: I realised the first time I posted that the act was way too long for one post so this is a repost of it in parts. :D)
Title: Sithhunter: Apprentice (or Sithhunters: Apprentice depending on my plural or singular moods)
Author: Darsha Assant, (No, obviously that's my real name)
Genre: Everything except Horror. No spooks in here! (only Force manifestations) Also follows canon as closely as possible.
Characters: Mainly OC with a bit of this character here and that character there. Don't get turned off please, everybody's favourite Jedi play a part too!
Disclaimer: Georgie podgie pudding and pie,
Made Star Wars and made the sky
He's got enough money,
So I doubt he'll sue me,
For playing in his house and pulling his tie.
Act 1: Waiting for the Storm
Scene 1: Approach the Horizon
The city. Still in the dark of night, yet brilliantly lit by the varicoloured neon lights, advertising (mostly) sleazy attractions and the promiseof a good time, (mostly left unfulfilled). Adding even more brilliant light were the flashing lights of vehicles, like migrating fowl, crawling their way across the sky, the glowlamps seeming to light their way, but not prevent accidents if one was intoxicated enough.Oh, was the mention of the "If you drink, don't drive" campaign ads placed by the Home Affairs department at every traffic light neglected?
Ah, the drunks. Staggering out of every cantina, bloodstream full of substances that would make a Jedi Healer or just plain old medic cringe at the mere thought of.
Drunkards. Ah yes, the truly intoxicated, and the pretenders. But no one can really tell the difference, if the pretender knows how to pretend enough.
A drunk man staggered out of the cantina, singing brokenly. The man in a hooded cloak drew his garments more tightly around him.
"Why did you choose this place in the whole of Coruscant to meet?" He whispered at the shadow in the corner.
The shadow laughed. "This is the place where most transactions take place. No one will care if they see anything suspicious. "
The hooded one glanced at a pair of Bith haggling over something in squeaky whispers and furtive glances. No one gave them a second look. "You're probably right. But I hate drunks. They don't know what's good for them."
True enough, one with a tangled mass of once perhaps, blond, but now extremely dirty blond, and with a silly grin pasted all over his face, staggered up to them, a bottle of red firewhisky in his left hand. "Ha! Me beauties... don't stand there in a corner, for the sake of Jabba's foot. Come and have a drink with us!" He slammed a hand on the man in the hooded cloak and drunkenly took another gulp, and most of the crimson liquid, nauseatingly reminiscent of blood, splashed on the head of the hooded man.
Apparently annoyed, the shadow in the corner twitched a green hand, and two Gammorean bodyguards materialised out of the shadows behind the shadow and dragged the protesting drunk off. "Hey schlummie," The drunk said, trying to focus his eyes, "What's wrong with asking you to join me in a drinksh?" The Gammoreans laughed their pig like snorts, and threw him out of the window where the body plummeted into Coruscant's fathomless depths with a despairing scream.
"Now let's get back to business." The shadow replied nonchalantly, as if nothing had happened. "About the information about theplanned … visitation, I have logged it into the data chip so that you may review it at your own pleasure. The funds may be placed in the usual place."
Saying that, the shadow, which the man could see was a twi'lek for a green lekku was peeping out under his hood, reached under his clothes to pull out safe box. A code was keyed in, and the box popped open slowly. A hiss escaped the green-lipped mouth. "What?" he roared, flinging the unmistakably empty box on the table.
llllllllllll
Padawan Axemali "Wolfbane" Eestheil decided that he had screamed long enough, and plummeted too far for them to hear him anyway. Grinning, feeling strangely lightheaded as if he'd been drugged – no it was not the firewhisky — he hadn't drunk any – he used the Force to settle him gently in an open air taxi. "Senate offices, please." He said as gently as he could as the driver choked on the doughring he was eating. "Oh dear, let me clear that for you," he said, and with a flick of his finger the offending chunk of sugared dough flew out to land splat on the window of another vehicle passing by. The driver stared and the taxi stopped in mid air, hovering. "Senate Offices," Axemali repeated. Seeing the gaping mouth, Axemali sighed, and tried to lift the driver from his seat. But the driver's hands were so tight on the wheel that Axemali could not have removed them without hurting them. Loud, angry horns told him that otherdrivers were becoming impatient and had zoomed past them, expressing their displeasure through loud honks.
"Oh well," Axemali sighed, and for a moment, his famous brooding look shot over his face. Then it was back to flippancy. "Guess I'll have to take the High Highway then." With that, he gathered the force, and leapt to the roof of a passing transport. And onto the nextand the next, as if the string of vehicles were like stepping stones on a conveyor belt.
llllllllllll
The Senate Guard Captain was tired. Really tired. His shift was nearly over, and he couldn't wait for it to end. Of course, he could not let his associates know that, for fear of losing his position, and perhaps, his job. He rubbed his eyes and looked out of the window to the entrance, where he saw one of his guards arguing with a scruffy looking tramp. Probably another drunk, he thought. When willthose idiots start sobering up?
Then his comlink beeped. "What is it?" he asked his hapless confederate irritably.
"Uh sir... " the guard began.
"Yes?" The Captain snapped, angry at being interrupted while dreaming of what he would do when his shift ended. Basically it involved getting really intoxicated… with a nice, rounded….
"Well this guy here... he reeks of alcohol... and looks disreputable…and he demands to be let in."
"Dolt! Don't let him in! Isn't that obvious?" Nice…rounded…bouncy..
"Well yes sir... but he claims that he is a Jedi, here to see the Supreme Chancellor."
The Captain laughed till tears ran down his face, momentarily forgetting about the nice rounded, bouncy thing he was dreaming about. "Hahaha... tell him thanks for giving me some amusement... hohoho! Just imagine that! A drunk Jedi! Ahahahahaha! May the Force bewith the drink, you Jedi Whisky!"
"Uh sir... he says if you are not going to let him in... He's going to go in anyway."
"Haha! Can he climb? Or Fly? Or Levitate? Or…"
The Guard Captain gaped as he saw a blur climbing up the side of the building. The tramp, if that was what he was, stopped to give him a cheery wave, then launched himself upwards again.
lllllllllllll
Axemali clambered into the Chancellor's office, the rags he wore leaving a smear on the wall that made the cleaning droid squeak in protest. Both Valorums were there – the father, the Supreme Chancellor, and the son, the Supreme Chancellor-to-be. Master Yoda and Master Eeth "Feeling Horny" Koth were there too..
Trying to brush off the droid which was now aggressively attacking him with disinfectant, he bowed, and with a fluid motion, head butted the droid to let it know he'd had enough. "Why do you always have to come in smelling like a sewer?" squeaked his master, a pure midget humanoid Yoda's height. Ilf "Elf" Jinling'ui also had wild frizzy white hair, and an equally frizzy white beard and moustache, so that he looked rather like a rat hiding behind a clump of snowy bushes, especially with his crinkled, black beetle eyes, and hairy skin, and a little stubby tail. Maybe because of that, it would be more appropriate to call him a hamster instead of a rat.
"Be thankful that I got it." Axe said tiredly, collapsing on a nearby chair and sending the cleaning droid into hysterics again.
"You got it?" Valorum Sr. was gazing at him with black ringed, sunken eyes that looked like they had been continually bashed in. Valorum Jr. was just a little better, only resembling a panda. "How?"
"Simple. Just distract the mind while you use the force to open the safe and slide the chip out on the floor. Then lock it back again."
Axemali drew the datachip out form a pocket in his grimy tunic, and put it into the reader on a nearby table. Immediately, words began to appear and diagrams of battle droids began to unfurl.
"Pity," said Eeth. "It doesn't say who did it."
"Of course not," snorted Ilf. "But these models look like variations of Baktoid's new line…." He looked thoughtful.
"One was a human and the other a green Twi' Lek." Axemali added. "Both apparently male."
Yoda closed his eyes and nodded. "Yet detain all male humans and Twi' Leks we cannot. Something dark grows here, I believe. Like little streams of trouble and unrest, they are. And all join in a huge river of destruction, they do."
Valorum Sr. stood up. "Do you have an idea what this is all about? Even after two weeks when I had first heard of this, life still seems pretty normal."
Yoda nodded sagely. "Hard to see, the dark side is."
"We also have evidence that the groupies are coming in more furious numbers." Eeth added.
"Groupies?" Valorum Jr. could not have looked more perplexed.
"Our term for the second kind of Sith, that have overcome the solitary instincts of their kind. They are more dangerous in fights, but worse schemers then the Duo." Ilf explained.
"Duo?" Perhaps looking more perplexed was possible.
"The two Sith that sprung from one of the two last remaining Sith that declared the Sith Order to be a pair, Master and Apprentice and no more than that. The other fled into the unknown regions to form the groupies. They have learnt the point about learning from their enemies, like us, and thus they are closely knit, with minimal scheming to overthrow their masters, and thus makes them less susceptible than the Duo to discord planting." Axemali explained.
"Very bad sentence structure," his master said, winking at him mischievously. "Perhaps you should go back to Basic school."
"All I want now is to go back and sleep, Masters, Sirs. I'm sorry but I haven't slept since this fiasco started cos those idiots kept changing the meeting time…"
"Overworking your Padawan, eh?" Yoda said, eyes twinkling as he looked straight into Ilf's eyes. Still, they were of similar height.
"I wasn't here to oversee him. You were the one that sent me to some Force-forsaken planet."
"Oh. Still, a lesson on when to take a rest he has to learn, Elf."
"I agree," said Eeth, almost as sagely.
"Shut up, Feeling Horny."
"Am I missing something here?" Valorum Jr. asked worriedly.
lllllllllllllll
"Go get some sleep, Axe," His master said as soon as they reached the Sithhunter abode or lair or base or home or whatever they chose to call their underground warren, affectionately patting him on the knee.
Axemali nodded wearily. Trudging towards his room, he fell onto his sleepcouch without bothering to take off his boots or change into garments that were not sodden with whisky. His eyes closed as he waited for sleep to come. I haven't been this tired before, he thought. I must be getting old. Well, older, at any rate. He trailed off into sleep.
lllllllllllll