Maya-202!

A Star Wars-Inspired Story!

Episode I

The Two Prince War

Chapter XI

Old Friends

Kamino, Irenca City

Prince Thomanius sensed a Jedi's presence, one he had not felt for a very long time... But he knew exactly who it was. Master 'Finn' as people called him, but Thomanius knew all about the man's past, what he really was. Really, everybody else did as well, but the Dark Prince felt he was the only one who acknowledged it.

Jedi Master Finn had trained Thomanius' father, King Erasmus. The Jedi Master had seen potential in the future king back when he had first encountered him as a young school dropout, and had decided to take him as his Padawan. Ever since his father's death, Finn had felt Thomanius' aura become darker and darker, up until now. He had tried to reach out to Thomanius in the force, in an effort to persuade him to come to the Jedi Temple for a type of rehabilitation, but Thomanius had rejected his attempts to bring him back from the dark side every single time. Thomanius sneered at the man's name anytime it was mentioned now, as it showed how pathetic the Jedi Order were to him, begging someone to 'turn' back from the dark side. He honestly felt it was below pitiful that they kept on trying it. But that had stopped recently – and now the old Jedi Master was about to arrive, it seemed. As annoying as it was to not finally put an end to his brother's minions, Thomanius now wanted to save his energy for dealing with this Jedi. After all, Finn was far more experienced and was going to be more able to stop his plans than two young, weak, untrained dreamtroopers, even if one of them appeared to be force-sensitive. "Sir, a Jedi Starfighter has been spotted moving into Kamino's atmosphere. The ship is one from the Republic's Jedi Council," Commander Terror noted, but the Prince already knew all of this, of course. He let go of Maya and Leo, who fell down coughing and gasping to get air back into their respiratory systems. The pair of them were overcome with relief at this. "Take these two as prisoners. I'm sure my brother will be happy to see how his ridiculous little mission is going. Let me deal with the Jedi," Thomanius scowled. "Roger, roger. Yes, Sir!" the Commander replied, and then ordered two nightmare troopers to grab the new prisoners and take them to Lab Room 67-31 and lock them in. They did as they were told, as they had been programmed to be, and lifted each prisoner by the arm. Maya and Leo were still too busy trying to breathe properly again and regain consciousness to properly fight back – they squirmed a bit in the droid's arms, but neither of them had enough strength again to escape their clutches. Thomanius had considered finishing the job easily by dicing them with his sabers, but he had a greater desire to push Onasius' buttons instead and make him worry for his friends. After all, Onaisus was the one Thomanius really held a grudge against – his troopers were just unfortunate enough to end up being the ones he had sent to do his own work. 'How lazy did he have to be that he couldn't even be bothered to come and try to snatch the plans himself, and instead had to make his slaves do it for him?' Thomanius had thought. He thought his brother saw himself as above all this, as if being a Jedi Prince made him eligible to sit in his – previously their family's – mansion all day long whilst his servants did his dirty work. Thomanius put his thoughts about his brother to one side for a moment – there was someone else that he needed to concentrate on eliminating for now.

"MOVE IT!" the nightmare trooper shouted as it prodded Maya's back with his EE-4, pushing her down the corridor with Leo. They were able to walk properly now, but only slowly as their energy level was still quite low. The other droid shoved Leo alongside her. "Faster!" the droid ordered.

"I'm trying! Don't get your whatever droids wear as undergarments in a twist!" Leo said feistily, his intense anger clearly still present from earlier. "SHUT IT SCUM, OR I'LL BLAST YA! NOW GET IN!" the trooper yelled back as they arrived at the lab room, shocked that a prisoner would speak to him that way. Leo begrudgingly followed the droid's instruction. They had, obviously, had their weapons and comms confiscated from them and put inside a safe that required retinal ID from Kaminoan Staff or Prince Thomanius himself to open, so getting their blasters back was going to be near-impossible, as was alerting someone to their whereabouts.

Through the window of Officer Meldrow's fighter, a green Jedi Interceptor floated down to the Kaminoan landing pad on a space next to another empty Tranqu-freighter. R2-D2 beeped in delight that Finn and BB-8 were here to help, although C3-PO hadn't noticed and was still trembling over the attack. He squeaked again and this time it got the Protocol Droid's attention. "W-what? They're here! Oh hooray, we're saved!" he celebrated. However, R2-D2 slid out of the cramped ship and into the rain. "R2? What are you doing?! That is a very unwise idea!" C3-PO scolded, but R2 ignored him. Astromechs could handle themselves in battle, as much as it looked like they were simple droids, they could also stun enemies with their very own shock prods. "R2! Come back! You won't be able to defend yourself if those troopers start firing at you!" 3PO panicked, before following his buddy into the rain to meet their old friends. "Oh, why do I let myself get dragged into these situations, R2-D2?" he asked sarcastically.

The Prince had ordered his troops not to fire on the Jedi's ship – he wanted to have a discussion with him, before he killed him. Thomanius could see an astromech and the gold protocol droid that had ran away from the earlier battle wander out and over to the Jedi's ship. The troopers raised their weapons again, but Thomanius stopped them. "Don't waste blaster bolts on an astromech and that thing. He's pretty obviously useless and unable to fight, he scurried off at the first sign of trouble earlier."

"Roger that, my Lord." And that was when he finally saw the Jedi – dressed in his long robes with his dark hood over his head to cover him from the weather. His face wasn't clearly visible, but it was definitely him. He had an astromech of his own – it was BB-8. Thomanius had his mind cast back to his childhood, in the time before everything turned horrible, when his father met with Finn for training. Thomanius used to play with BB-8 as a baby. He slightly smiled at the happy memory, but his face became stony again in response to the remembering that those good times were lost now, and probably forever. The group of droids and the Jedi looked as though they were talking to one another, but they abruptly stopped, and all of them turned to glare at Thomanius, before they started moving towards him. 'Here we go,' Thomanius thought with a sly grin on his face.

After yet again being jolted by the nightmare troopers behind them, the pair walked slowly into the room, their hands behind their heads in surrender – for now. It seemed a strange choice to keep them prisoner in a laboratory rather than an actual type of prison cell, however there was no way of escaping, besides somehow getting through the main door, so it was good a room as any. There were flasks and test tubes all around with blue and green liquids in them, making it seem like the most cliché studio lab from a holomovie. All it needed to complete the scene were random microscopes dotted about the room. The droids diffused out of the lab room back into the corridor, and shut the doors which automatically locked with a 'click' sound, activating a red light, which had been green, above. "Don't even think about trying to escape, you two, because we're gonna be outside this door all day, all night, and the rest of our shelf-lives if necessary," the nightmare trooper warned them loudly from the outside. "Well, look on the bright side. We're not dead…" Leo humorously remarked as he slumped down onto one of the seats which presumably used to be used by clones created here.

"Not dead yet," Maya emphasised to him. She immediately started to look around to find if there was any way out that hadn't been visible upon first entering the room, such as a ventilation shaft. There was one on the east wall, that was tiny but still allowed for air flow into the lab. However, it was so minute that even the smallest porg probably wouldn't be able to squeeze through it. The whole room was artificially lit, so there were no windows to hop out of, and even if there were, jumping out of them would most likely lead to the sea of doom below. They were trapped.

Finn was weary when he strolled up to Prince Thomanius – he could feel the darkness almost oozing out of him, as if it could be seen by the naked eye. The Dark Prince grew ever closer to him, until before they knew it, they were practically a centimetre apart. It was a strange sensation – he hadn't seen Prince Thomanius for quite some time now, ever since a couple of days after his father had been murdered. So much had changed since those good times. "Well, well, Master Finn. What a pleasure to finally see you again, after all these years," Thomanius teased in a passive-aggressive manner. Finn noticed a strange absence of Nightmare Troopers – considering that a few moments ago, BB-8 had noted that the forces of the Deep Beyond were being overridden by Nightmare Troopers – now it appeared just to be the Dark Prince and one of his loyal right-hand men that were on the battleground. His eyes narrowed. "Where is your army, Prince Thomanius?" he asked suspiciously. The Prince smirked.

"None of your business, Jedi Master. I know what you've come here to do. In fact, people that don't even possess a knowledge of the force can figure out what you've come here for," Thomanius stated.

"I'm not here to kill you, if that's what you think."

"So, what? You're just here to tell me how I should be ashamed of myself, and to 'think about what I've done'. You Jedi – you disgust me. It disgusts me even more to think I was once supposed to be one of you. Do you really think my brother is any better? His army is practically slave labour. At least my droids are just programmed and can't sense pain. He – he has created lives just to be destroyed. And look at the Jedi Order now in general – it was rebuilt by someone related to Darth Sidious, and an ex-stormtrooper. Face it – he, along with all of you, are just as evil as I am – I'm just willing to admit it," Thomanius spat.

"You're wrong," Finn shook his head seriously, "and your father would disapprove of what you're doing strongly."

"You don't know the first thing about my father, or me, for that matter. Enough talking, anyway. Let's get this over with," Thomanius scowled and drew his lightsaber again, and simultaneously, Finn did too. Activating his luminant green blade, Finn moved it in front of him in defence as Thomanius leapt at him, the Prince's purple blade smashing against it. Eventually, Finn pulled back, and Thomanius repeatedly took more swipes at him, but Finn parried them with perfectly precise timing. BB-8 decided to help his Master. He started to slide towards Thomanius, his shock prod at the ready, but before he could reach him, the trooper that had been stood with the Prince earlier realised what he was up to. He moved up to the astromech and told him to "STOP RIGHT THERE!" But BB-8 was having none of that. He shocked the trooper, and then headbutted him with a rolling charge, causing him to fall on his back. The droid trooper became irate. How could this tiny little astromech be competent for fighting? He pointed his EE-4 at the astromech and blasted at him several times. But none of them hit BB-8, who strolled swiftly to the trooper and electrified him another time with his shock prod, this time stopping the droid for good.

"Hey, I have an idea!" Leo exclaimed once he had regained full awareness from the choking incident. Maya asked him what it was, to which he, half-jokingly, replied "Use the Force Maya!"

"Leo, this is no time for messing around. We need to get out of this room," she said.

"I'm not really joking, Maya. Look at what happened back on Fortralin! Surely if you can speedily take out a bunch of Nightmare Troopers the way you did there, you can open a door," Leo suggested whilst pointing at the door that had locked them in. To be fair, it was probably as good an idea as any at this moment, and he did have a point. Maya still wasn't totally convinced she was force-sensitive, but it was worth a go anyway. "Hmmmm… ok, I might as well try. I can't see any other way we're getting out of here right now, so I'll give it a go," Maya accepted. She felt a bit corny standing in front of a door putting her hand out to see if it would open, like a toddler pretending to be a Jedi with 'superpowers'. She mentally focused her energy on trying to get out of the cell, but nothing happened. "Dammit…" she muttered under her breath, and then tried again. "No, it's not working!" she said in an aggravated tone.

"Keep trying, Maya! Don't forget, training is needed for people to be able to use the force properly, so don't feel any pressure from me, I don't expect you to get it prefect first time. It was just an idea," Leo encouraged. She thanked him, and took his advice – he was right, she needed to be patient if this had any potential of working. She tried a couple more times, but still nothing happened. However, round about attempt number 9, there was a point where she almost settled in trying to open it – she nearly forgot the frustration she had been feeling over the failed tries, the stress of being captured by a Sith Lord as prisoners, and instead, she closed her eyes, and relaxed. And in the second she did so, a click was heard near the door. Leo jumped up out of where he had been sat in joy. "What was that?!" the guarding troopers questioned to each other, but after they didn't see anything for a second, they simply dismissed it. Maya opened her eyes. She was excited, but the door didn't seem to be open, and the lights were still red above, implying they were still locked in. Disappointment washed over her. "Oh… I thought I'd done it then…" she sighed and sat down on the white floor. "Hey, Maya that was great! Don't be disheartened," Leo told her.

"But I didn't get it open, and I really thought I had it that time as well. I can't do it – nothing happened, even when I tried my hardest to make something happen," she explained, but Leo gestured to the door.

"Maya, ok, we're not out of this room yet, but look; you did do something!" Leo said in excitement. Maya glanced at where he was showing her – and he was right! It wasn't obvious at first sight, but there was now a tiny, tiny space in the door that had cropped up. Maya was stunned, as everything she had just been complaining about had turned out to be incorrect. "Oh my! You're right!" she celebrated, before deciding to try it again. The droids banged on the door and told the pair to "KEEP IT DOWN!" as they were being a bit loud. "Oops…" Maya said and giggled with Leo like two mischievous schoolchildren. She hopped up off the ground and began to give it another crack.

Finn and Thomanius had shifted along the platform as they had been dueling each other. The rain hammered against their robes, and combined with the flashes of lightning it certainly didn't help either of them see where their opponent was planning to strike next. Nonetheless, Thomanius refused to give in. He continued tirelessly to keep swinging his lightsaber at Finn, but to his irritation, Finn kept on blocking his attacks. Thomanius decided this tactic wasn't working – he jumped up onto the side railings on the platform, and sprang back off them, taking Finn by surprise in a parkour-like movement and slashing part of his cheek. It wasn't a big cut he had made, but it had taken a tiny bit off of him. "Agh!" Finn yelped as blood began pouring out of the new wound. "You're gonna pay for that, asshole!" Finn threatened angrily. Thomanius laughed with sadistic glee. Finn almost did a swan-dive over Thomanius, but landed on both his feet. Thomanius turned around immediately, and the two started to fence again. Late in the duel, Finn managed to slash Thomanius in a the chest, again not taking a huge chunk out of him, but injuring him slightly enough so he fell to the ground for a moment. Thomanius repeated the line Finn had said to him through his teeth in agony – "You're gonna pay for that, asshole!" Finn had his saber placed directly at Thomanius' throat. "I don't want to do this. But if you refuse to accept defeat then I will have no choice," Finn warned. However, at that second, a large ship appeared next to them, sailing from the inside hangar at the lab. The ship flashed its light, blinding Finn temporarily, so much that he had to put his hands over his eyes to cover them. Perfect timing - Thomanius saw his opening. He force pushed Finn whilst he couldn't see, and he flew across and hit his head on the floor. "Master!" Lieutenant Fearful shouted and waved his hand to show his Prince where he was, as the ship's docking platform opened up. Thomanius got up, and backflipped onto the ship. "So long, Jedi Master…." Thomanius teased, and waved to Finn with a smile cruelly. "Thanks," he murmured to the Lieutenant as he climbed up from the bay and into the ship's corridors.

"My pleasure, your highness," the droid replied.

"Dammit…" Finn cursed as the Sith Lord made his escape. BB-8 rolled up next to him and beeped a bit. He opened his storage compartment and offered a bacta pad. Finn took it, thanked him and placed it over where Thomanius had caught him with his blade. BB-8 buzzed again. "Hey, it's not your fault. Sorry I couldn't help you take down that other trooper, but it seems that you already took care of that one, eh?" Finn smirked at the droid, which made several noises and twirled his head around in pride. "Oh my, Master Finn!" C3-PO said in shock upon seeing the split in his cheek, as he and R2 had managed to catch up to the pair. Finn told him he was fine and that it was just a mere graze. "You guys missed the main performance," he remarked while fiddling with the bacta pad BB-8 had given to him. "I can't believe he got away..." Finn muttered in annoyance. He wondered what he would tell Rey. R2 beeped, with some interesting information. "Wait, so you're telling me they're all gone?" Finn said.

"Not all of them, but we saw a lot of them getting on that big ship that Prince Thomanius got onto as well!" C3-PO corrected him.

"Ah… ok, here's the plan. I will contact Mistress Rey and inform her of the unfortunate circumstances now, and I'm going to suggest we take a little 'look around' the lab, just to see if we can find anything else, or any clues as to where he might be headed to. Unless the Deep Beyond manage to find where he is before us. R2, can you see if you can contact them to find out?" Finn improvised. After a playful agreeing buzz from R2, Finn said "Great, thanks. I'll talk to Rey now."

Maya tried and tried, but nothing was working now, and she was starting to get tired. "I'm sorry, Leo, but it's no use right now. I'll try again later when I have more energy," she theorised.

"Hey, you don't need to apologise. I don't really know how the force powers thing works, and as I said earlier, I don't expect you to be able to magically solve everything straight away just because you have them," Leo said.

"Might have them," Maya noted. She sat back down next to where Leo was sprawled out on the old seating. But all of a sudden, there was some noise outside – the Nightmare troopers were shouting, and then there was a crash. "What was that?" Leo questioned. And as if by magic, the door opened…

As soon as Finn entered the laboratory, he could sense something – there were people here, good people, who needed help. "Hold on – follow me," he interrupted C3-PO, who had been ranting again, in determination to find whoever it was that was here. The lab corridors were basically empty, bar a few Kaminoans that Finn dealt with easily using force mind tricks. "Sir, I really think this is a bad idea!" C3-PO worried, but Finn told him to hush. "HEY! A JEDI! HALT, PREPARE TO BE ELIMINATED, SCUM!" yelled a Nightmare Trooper. C3-PO screamed and ran off, yet again, but Finn and the two astromechs held their ground. There were two troopers guarding a room – they began to fire at Finn, but he deflected their blaster shots without difficulty, even though they were pretty fast. R2 hovered over to one of the troopers and flamed him, and BB-8 helped by releasing several wires that attached to the trooper and pulling him down. Alongside them, Finn force pushed the other one, which went straight into the door and banged loudly. They were both defeated. Finn noticed that the door was locked, and he could feel the people he had noticed behind there…

"Stand back!" a voice from outside shouted – it wasn't a droid, but Maya and Leo did as ordered to anyway. They had no clue what was happening now, unless Thomanius had come to torture them or do whatever other nasty thing he had been planning to do to them, but it would seem strange that he would warn them to stay back from the door. All of a sudden, the door slammed open noisily, revealing a man who seemed a little familiar behind it, but it wasn't Thomanius. This was a Jedi. The Jedi moved his hand, which he had used in a motion to psychokinetically pry open the door, from the air and back to his sides. "You two alright?" the Jedi asked with a comforting smile, his voice deep with what sounded like a willingness to help. Leo was yet again stunned, so much that he was almost glued to his spot. "We are a pair of lucky bastards, aren't we?" he chuckled to Maya.

"Who are you, and how did you know we were here?" Maya interrogated, not one hundred percent sure as to whether to trust the Jedi, due to the fact that it seemed like the warlock that was supposed to be trustworthy had led them straight into Thomanius' trap beforehand at Gatterall. "I'm Jedi Master Finn. You two are soldiers for Prince Onasius, no? I could sense you were somewhere that you weren't supposed to be, and I simply followed where that sense took me to find you," Finn greeted, and put his hand out for shaking. Now, Maya remembered where she had seen this guy before - of course, he had been at Iryx sometimes with Prince Onaisus, as he was on the Jedi Council with Finn. The two had usually been talking about, as Leo jokingly liked to call them, 'important Jedi matters'. "Well, thank you for the rescue. How did you do that with the door, you were so fast!?" Maya asked curiously, in an attempt to learn from her earlier practice. That was when Finn realised that he was not the only force-sensitive in the room. He was puzzled for a second at the idea that a dreamtrooper could be force-sensitive, and it showed when he stumbled on his words. "Um... huh... you - I think you might be force-sensitive..." Finn said, not really answering the question.

"I'm not really sure, I tried to open that door so many times, but I only ever got it to shift a tiny little bit. You basically blasted it open in the first go!" Maya responded with admiration, but also with disbelief that she possessed force powers. "That's only because I have had the training to do that, from a Jedi Master. I can feel that, you have discovered something fairly new about yourself that you had never known up until now, and I'm presuming that's the fact that you're force-sensitive, so I'm also gonna assume you haven't had any training, right?" Finn explained. Maya nodded her head."Well, there's your answer. I suppose I should tell you that the first thing you have to know about the force is that you can't make it do something right away just because you tell it to - you have to have a certain... mindset to working with it," Finn chose his words carefully, and Maya took it all in. "Is it alright if I take you to the Jedi Council later? I'll inform Onasius if you feel it is necessary." Maya's excitement levels went off the charts at this request. She hated to admit it, and felt like she was a total wannabe by feeling it, but the potential that she could be a Jedi, something more than what she was, had honestly been something she had kind of always wanted. "Yes!" Maya shrieked a little too enthusiastically, as if she had just been proposed to, and then calmed down quickly, a bit embarrassed at showing her exhilaration audibly. But Finn saw nothing to be embarrassed about. He chuckled sweetly. "Well, I'm glad to hear you're looking forward to it. I see potential in you, but I think we need to talk to the Council first before you decide what to do - so you can be more informed as to what being a Jedi is, and whether you should be trained," Finn informed. "Circumstances like yours are... well, no offense, but they are obviously unusual for a Jedi, since most trainees are taken when children to become Padawans. But as you know, really those are old rules, many jedi now are accepted when much older. Even Grand Mistress Rey herself was a lot older than a child when she was trained by Master Luke Skywalker, and, so long as the Council sees it as appropriate, there should be no reason for rejecting the proposal to take you in," he added.

"Thank you so so much!" Maya exclaimed, once more showing her over-excitement at these possibilities.

"This is very nice and all, and I'm happy for you, Maya, but d'you think that this conversation could wait until after we've escaped the evil genius's lab?" Leo remarked casually, to remind the Jedi and Maya that they had not actually exited the cell yet.

"Sorry, Leo. You know how easily caught up I can get in exciting discussions..." Maya took off her helmet and winked at him. "You're right, though. Let's find a way out here first, and see if we can find those plans."

"Ummm... excuse me, I hate to inform you of this, but Prince Thomanius made an emergency escape on one of his large cruisers, and we suspect he took the plans with him..." C3-PO said to Maya.

Maya drew a deep intake of breath, and sighed it out with a sarcastic "Great."

"All hope is not lost, my friend. There's still several Kaminoans and a few troopers here, although most of them went with the Prince. Maybe they will know something that might help us..." Finn theorised, and started to walk towards the now-unlocked door. "Come on," he beckoned. "You may not officially be in training, but I think it's time for your first lesson on Jedi mind tricks..." Finn smirked at Maya, and she was inclined to follow the Jedi.