HERE COMES TROUBLE!:
By: ShadowWing
Disclaimer: Mariko and the Knights are mine, Ashanti belongs to Val Gilliam, the Jedi belong to Mr. Lucas, (Who is either laughing his head off or planning to sue me if he ever reads this) No money being made, giggles galore, but no money…
Authors Notes:
SW: I plead temporary insanity…
Wolfie: What’s this temporary crap! You are insane!
SW: Excuse me…
(Sound of duct tape being pulled off the roll) *camera blacks out then comes on*
SW: Damn it…
Wolfie: Oh this was smart! Now we are BOTH wrapped in duct tape!
SW: Never mind that, this is a little ‘What If’ I cooked up if my Knight, Mariko, met Wolfie’s Jedi, Ashanti.
Wolfie: I sense oncoming chaos… As well as a disturbance in the Force…
SW: Ya got that right…Now read the story whist my ex-roomie and I try and figure out how to get out of this mess…
~This could be a problem~ Thought Ashanti as she found herself in free fall from the upper balcony of the tavern to the rather hard floor below. ~But not for me…~ She grew up in a jungle for Sith’s sake! This fall was nothing compared to the spills in her youth, she was about to handle the landing when she suddenly stopped in mid air and was moved to the railing of the next lower balcony. Surprised, but Ashanti was not about to look the gift horse in the mouth. She nimbly hopped over the railing and onto the balcony. The Force was going nuts, and it wasn’t about the several dark Jedi running around the joint either. There was another Force user about and it was not a Jedi…
“You okay?” Asked a cloaked figure, Ashanti looked over and figured out that she had just found the other Force user. The outfit alone was enough to prove that whoever this was didn’t belong to the Jedi order, jet black jumpsuit, scarlet tabard, black boots, red gauntlets, black cloak with scarlet lining. Ashanti nodded and idly wondered how the outfit would look with purple instead of red.
“Who are you and what are you doing here?” The Titanian stated blandly.
If the figure was about to answer it was rudely interrupted by a small explosion from the floor. Ashanti was able to grab the surviving railing and on reflex grabbed the cloaked figure with her tail. The figure groaned, “Not my day…” as they both dangled.
Ashanti was going to make Yoda pay for this mission, ‘Easy’ he assured her, ‘Simple mission for a Jedi like you.’ She should have known better, she felt a tug on her tail evidently the figure had gotten a hold of the next balcony and was about to climb on.
“You coming?” the figure asked, the hood had fallen off and Ashanti was staring at a white furred face with two red slashes going through the right side of it, long black hair and two long ears poking out from the top of the head, it was also decidedly female. Ashanti nodded and slacked up on her tail so the other woman could hop over the balcony, in a matter of seconds Ashanti was next to her.
“My question still stands, Who are you and what are you doing here?” Scowled the Jedi.
“Mariko, and I was just stopping for a drink when all hell broke loose.” She grinned at Ashanti, “You wouldn’t happen to know how that happened do you?”
“What ever gave you that idea….” Muttered Ashanti through gritted teeth. Mariko’s eyes got huge and the Force was yelling at the top of it lungs…if it had lungs in the first place…
The stampede of dark Jedi was hitting the breaks as two sabers, one gray one purple, came out and began to hack them to pieces. Ashanti glared at Mariko’s blade as she jumped over a dark Jedi and sent him to join his fellows with a few deft swipes of her saber.
“What?” Yelled Mariko over the ensuing chaos about them.
“Where in the Sith did you get a gray saber?!” The Titanian snarled back.
Mariko gave her saber a look and shrugged, “I picked a crystal and that’s the color it turned out?” She answered with a trace of sarcasm.
“The crystals used to make sabers are mostly, red, green, blue, yellow, pink, orange and purple. Not gray!” Snapped Ashanti.
“Well mine is, consider it a fluke of nature solely created to annoy you.” Mariko sighed as the last dark Jedi fell under her blade. “Are you having as bad a day as I am?”
“Yes.” Muttered Ashanti.
“Good, now I consider myself an innocent bystander in this how about yourself?” Smirked Mariko.
“I was sent to mediate a trade dispute between two clans, what I didn’t know was that a Hutt was working with one clan and dark Jedi were working with the other.” Ashanti sighed. “So now I have royally pissed off the Rankok Clan by killing several of their allies and totally hacked off the Merovia Clan because that Hutt owns this bar!”
Mariko looked about the smoking remains of the multi level bar. “Ouchies. Now what do we do?”
“We? What do you mean we you long eared menace? I don’t remember asking the Council for non-Jedi backup.” Snapped Ashanti, she was personally going to kill Yoda, she didn’t care whom it would hack off, and she was really going to do it this time.
Mariko cocked and eyebrow at the insult but chose to ignore it. Evidently this poor woman was having a very bad day. “Well I doubt that me entering this particular establishment helped the matter any, and most likely made it worse. For my Honor’s sake I gotta help clean up this mess. So who are you and where do we start?”
Something in the Force told Ashanti that she could trust this Force User, and to face it…she was going to need all the help she could get here. “Ashanti of the Jedi Order, now let’s make ourselves scarce before that Hutt comes to review the property damage.”
An hour later…
“Dark Jedi and a Hutt?” Gaped Mace Windu at Ashanti’s frazzled face on the comlink. “How did they get involved?”
“No clue I was hoping you could tell me.” Replied Ashanti. “I’m assuming that you had no clue that they were here.”
Mace shook his head. “No we did not Ashanti, I am truly sorry for sending you on this mission without doing more digging on what was the cause of that rift between the clans.”
“Too late for that, now what was this colony trading in? Maybe that’ll give me a clue on how to fix this nice mess that the Force decided to toss at me.” Sighed Ashanti, after she decided to call Corisant to report in and chew somebody out. Mariko thought she’d be useful and scout about to see exactly how many people wanted various parts of them scattered throughout the place. Ashanti silently hoped the fur ball wouldn’t make anything worse.
Mariko was inside a local warehouse owned by the Merovia Clan. Or to be more precise she was in the tight stuffy and dirty rafters of the warehouse. After she left Ashanti in her temporary living quarters, she decided to go out scouting. She wasn’t too sure how the Jedi Council would react to a Knight. Centuries ago the Knights and the Jedi were on fairly good terms, but that was before a good chunk of the Knights went ‘Rogue’ so to speak and terrorized the galaxy. Now there wasn’t a single Knight in the Republic, until Mariko dropped in on this port as a break from a long trip back to her native system. It wasn’t one of her brighter moves. She sighed softly and shifted her weight, the black cloak was very helpful here, keeping the hood low and the rest wrapped about her she was practically invisible. After was seemed like forever the pair of figures, who she figured were the heads of Merovia Clan, finally exited the small office in the far corner of the warehouse and moved toward the center of the room.
It was a typical warehouse, with crates of stuff stacked everywhere. Most were marked with whatever the contents were, however there were a crates, a tad smaller than the rest that were unmarked and set aside from the rest. It was toward these crates that the two figures moved. No sooner did they reach those crates than the main doors opened and several guards entered escorting what appeared to Mariko as the biggest slug she had ever seen.
“Oh gross!” She muttered under her breath. “Who or what is that?”
Mariko was further grossed out what the ‘slug’ began to talk. “Do you have what I requested?” It slurred to the two men. On cue one nodded while the other opened up the crate and opened it wide. Inside were crystals, hundreds of them sparkling brightly in the darkened area, the man who nodded reached over to the crate and pulled out a handful of the crystals to show to the ‘slug’.
“Is the great Jabar the Hutt pleased?” He asked with a slight note of sarcasm.
~ Oh, so that’s a Hutt, icky. ~ Thought Mariko as she used her sensitive ears to pick up as much of the conversation as she could. Were those crystals rare? Were they worth a ton of cash? The reason for the dispute Ashanti was to be mediating? The Hutt plucked one from the hand of the clan leader and grinned.
“I am very pleased, the arrangements shall go as planned in two days. Granted that you fulfill the rest of the deal Jakob.” Stated Jabar.
The response was too low for even Mariko to hear, but the tone of ‘Jakob’ was angry and rather annoyed. Mariko had to crack a smile; she was willing to bet that the response dealt with Ashanti and herself. After that the Hutt left first then Jakob and his companion, once the Force told her that the warehouse was empty Mariko slunk down to the crates and cracked one open. She carefully reached in and pulled out a handful of the crystals. The second she touched them she knew exactly what they were. Quickly she stuffed a handful of them into a pouch on her belt before shutting the crate and making her way out of the warehouse and back to where Ashanti was hiding out.
Mace was looking at Ashanti with a kind of stunned expression on his face. Ashanti was slightly confused; she had just described Mariko to Mace and mentioned the odd tattoo on her face. “Master Windu, close your jaw, you look like you are trying to catch bugs and what is going on?”
“A Knight.” Mace muttered.
“Yes Master Windu that’s what you and I are, Jedi Knights… Now must I repeat myself?” Muttered Ashanti.
“No, no,” Replied Mace quickly regaining his composure, “A Knight, Knights are a different faction of Force Users, similar to the Jedi Order but not identical. We presumed that they had died out in a massive war within their ranks centuries ago. At least in the Republic.”
“She ain’t from the Republic, if she is she’s a being I’ve never seen before.” Sighed Ashanti. “Do you think I can trust her?”
Mace cracked a grin, “If you couldn’t you would know by now, because you’d be dead.”
Ashanti frowned, “Thank you very much, now you told me that these clans are miners?”
Mace stopped grinning and nodded, “Per the information we received they had discovered a new line of ore, not sure what kind of ore, but evidently there is a dispute on whose territory the line goes though. Hence the fighting.”
“I bet if I find out what they were mining I bet I’ll find out why Dark Jedi and a Hutt is involved.” Smirked Ashanti.
Mace nodded and wished her luck before they both ended the transmission. Two seconds later Mariko climbed in through the window and saw a purple light saber pointed at her nose. Mariko grinned. “Nice to see you too.”
“Why are you climbing through the window?” Muttered Ashanti.
“Because people are staking out the front door.” Replied Mariko.
Ashanti thought about it for a few seconds, grinned, nodded and put the saber away. “So what did you find out? All I got was the cause of this dispute was some old fashioned claim jumping, but over what I have no clue.”
“I think I found that out.” Replied Mariko. “ Tailed two leaders of the Merovia Clan to a warehouse and they showed a few crates of stuff to the Hutt, at least I think it was the Hutt…”
“What did it look like?” Snickered Ashanti.
“The biggest, slimiest slug I have ever seen.” Replied Mariko.
Ashanti nodded, “Yep that would be a Hutt, now what did they show him?”
Mariko pulled the curtains across the window and pulled the pouch off her belt. “These.” She replied dumping the handful of crystals onto the table.
Ashanti blinked several times as she gazed into the rough-cut stones scattered across the table; they seemed similar to the Adegan crystals that the Jedi used to make their lightsabers. Yet they seemed different somehow, the colors spread across the table were completely different from the ones she had seen, like the blood red, the pure white, smoky gray. The Force signature, what was used to assist a Jedi in selecting the right crystals for his or her saber, was just slightly different. “By the Force, what are they…” She muttered picking up and looking at a deep red crystal.
“Luminari Crystals.” Answered Mariko in a matter of fact tone. “The type most Knights use in saber construction. A pretty powerful power source in small amounts, but these guys just found a huge line of the pure crystal, very rare even in my part of the universe.” Mariko shook her head. “In the wrong hands this could be a huge problem.”
“You don’t know the half of it Mariko.” Whispered Ashanti as she carefully placed the crystal she was holding back on the table. “This could threaten the entire Jedi Order…”
“How so?” Muttered Mariko.
Ashanti swallowed. “These are very similar to Adegan Crystals, the type we use in our lightsabers. Most students make two sets for crystals in a lifetime, one as a primary use. And a second for back up if the crystals ever shatter or break. As a precaution the Jedi Order controls all the major mines for the crystals. The only way a Dark Jedi can get a crystal is to be trained at first with the Order, then turn to the Dark Side.”
“Then further convince others to turn as well. They can’t train their own because they don’t have any extra crystals to create new sabers with.” Nodded Mariko.
Ashanti nodded. “That explains the Dark Jedi here, they would love to get a hold of a vein of crystals not controlled by the Order, and the Hutt would sell the mine to us or the Dark Jedi at a huge profit because we wouldn’t have any choice in the matter. We would have to meet the Hutt’s demands to keep the vein away from the Dark Side.”
“How do we know that Luminari Crystals will work in your sabers?” Asked Mariko.
Ashanti pulled out her saber and motioned for Mariko to pull out her own weapon. “Only one way to find out, let’s swap crystals and see.”
“You are nuts! If you’re wrong neither or us will have a weapon!” Gaped Mariko.
“Since we don’t have access to a lab, got a better idea fuzzy?” Smirked Ashanti.
A short time later both women had carefully removed the crystals from their weapons and traded them. Then with a few prayers ignited the weapons. Both blades flickered a tad and took a bit of frequency adjustment to stabilize the beam but soon enough Mariko held a bright purple blade while Ashanti held a pale gray beam. “Ya know I was almost hoping that the sabers would blow up.” Sighed Mariko.
Ashanti nodded and turned off her saber to remove the crystals. “I agree, I better call the Council back, they have to know about this and the sooner the better.”
“How fast can they act on this?” Asked Mariko removing the three purple crystals from her saber.
“About three days, any reason why?”
“Oh crap. That Hutt stated that he needed the shipment done in two days.” Groaned Mariko.
“Oh joy, how many crystals did you see?” Whimpered Ashanti.
“At least seven crates, each measuring 2 meters square.” Replied Mariko, “That was just at one of the Merovia Clan’s warehouses, how many do you think the Rankok Clan has?”
“Not going to go there, the Hutt is no problem, he’ll sell the stuff to the Jedi Order, or I’ll give him a heavy hint that they will buy it at a good price. Maybe I’ll go around the slime bag and inform that clan what they have and how much the Order is willing to pay them directly without a healthy commission going into the Hutt’s purse. It’s the Dark Jedi that’s going to be the problem…” Mused Ashanti while reassembling her saber.
“Can’t bribe them, they’ll guard the mines to the death and even then, hell they might even attempt to steal the other side’s supply if they sell to the Hutt or your Jedi Order.” Muttered Mariko.
Ashanti nodded. “So first we call the Council, then we have a chat with a clan head…” She clicked on the small tabletop video com and again had it connect to the Jedi Temple and the Council Chambers.
Mariko learned several new swear words in that exchange.
After the cursing had stopped the Jedi Council assured Ashanti that they would be sending several members to join them as well as several miners to hopefully take control of the mines; they would arrive in three days. It was up to Ashanti and Mariko to stall that shipment of the Hutt’s until then and convince the miners or the Hutt to hand the mine over. True to form Ashanti decided on the direct approach to deal with that little problem.
She located the Jakob’s home and knocked on the door with a cheery “Hello. May I come in? We need to talk…” The Jakob was so surprised to see Ashanti just standing there, oblivious to the various people milling about who would gladly taken her head off if they could that he decided to let her talk.
While Ashanti was giving the clans a quick review of what exactly they were selling to Dark Jedi and a Hutt Mariko was doing some recon work. Smack dab in the middle of the Dark Jedi camp, close by to the small village where the Rankok Clan lived. It was a small cluster of tents and other structures just outside the main area. The small village near the mine was extremely quiet, almost too quiet from Mariko’s point of view. After peeking into a few windows she saw numerous groups of woman and children huddled together in fear of the multiple Dark Jedi keeping watch over them. Mariko fumed in anger, she was guessing that the men of the clan were in the mine working to death to keep their families alive. She couldn’t help any of these people now, she needed to find out more on this set up and report back to Ashanti.
Jabar was confused, he was so sure that this deal would go through without a hitch, the Jedi trouble maker was discredited so he felt that he did not have to worry about her. In less than two days he’d have a whole transport full of a crystal that the Jedi Council would pay a mint for, he stood to make a fortune over the deal. So why his cohorts calling him to the Jakob’s home? What was going on? He caught on quick when he saw that long tailed Jedi calmly sitting next to the Jakob and the other Merovia Clan leaders with the biggest grin on her face.
“Jabar? Am I correct?” She grinned, he gurgled in anger and nodded, “Well the Council thanks you Jabar for finding these crystals for us. You can be assured that you will be paid a nice stipend for your efforts. The rest will go to the Merovia and Rankok Clans so they can improve their way of live here and continue to help the Order’s miners when they arrive in three days.” Ashanti gave the furious Hutt an impish grin.
Jabar quickly left the room before he did something drastic and stupid.
He really hated Jedi….
Meanwhile Mariko was also trying not to do something drastic and stupid, the Dark Jedi were working the miners as fast as they could to get as much Luminari Crystal out of the mine as soon as possible. They had a feeling that time was running out and wanted to be off with the horde as soon as possible. Mariko scowled, this was going to be messy, and a direct confrontation would get many people killed. She and Ashanti were going to need help and fast. She crawled her way out of the mine and made her way back to the other mining camp. On her way there she spotted a large cache of moldable explosive and a nice assortment of timers. The wheels began to turn as she sprinted back.
She reached the Merovia Village in record time and was treated to a sight of a very upset Hutt making his was out of the area and back to his bar. She looked into the building and spotted Ashanti acting very chummy with the very person who was showing off the crystals to the Hutt, Jakob if she recalled correctly. “Mission accomplished?” She asked the group.
Ashanti grinned. “Just like I told you, once they found out what they had they were more than happy to sell the crystals directly to us. Add to that the added business when the Order’s miners get here, and well they just had to turn the Hutt’s offer down, but he’ll get a nice little stipend for his trouble.”
“Good because we may need the extra help, it’s bad over in the other camp…really bad.” Muttered Mariko.
Ashanti got a good look at her new ally, she appeared to be barely holding on to her anger, and only her discipline and common sense were keeping in check. “Sit down Mariko and give us a run down, we have over two days left before the Council and company get here.”
She nodded and with the aid of a map indicated to both Ashanti and the their new friends where the mine was, the Rankok village, and where the Dark Jedi were holding the women and children hostage. After many debates a plan was formed, one was to hide what crystals they had already and get Jabar off the planet as soon as possible. He might have tried to slip info to the Dark Jedi as a revenge plot for the fortune he just lost.
Second was figuring out how to rescue the other clan, if they attacked the mine, they’d save the men but the woman and children would die, if they went after the women and children, the men would die. It was finally decided that they would go in two groups, one mostly of miners would go after the woman and children, there were very few Dark Jedi there and they would have the better chance against them.
Ashanti and Mariko going solo would enter the mine, free the men and get rid of the rest of the Dark Jedi. Simple plan right?
“They did what?” Groaned Mace Windu as he attempted to understand what in the Sith had gotten into Ashanti this time.
Jacob shook his head, he was having a hard time comprehending the insanity that occurred two nights ago himself, but he attempted to explain it as much for his benefit as for the Head of the Jedi Council. “The rescue plan for the women and children went well, at first I didn’t think my people had a chance against those guards, but that’s when the explosions started…”
“Surprising this is not.” Stated Master Yoda with a heavy sigh. As Ashanti’s Former Master he knew all too well what types of mayhem and chaos she could cause without even trying.
“All the Dark Jedi then ran for the mine, with us in pursuit to find that the entire main shaft was caved in on itself and the remaining Dark Jedi had run after seeing this. We thought to pursue them until we realized that neither Jedi Ashanti, or her companion were around, the men who were in the mine had made it out before the cave in. They told us that Ashanti; her friend and the last of the Dark Jedi were all in the cave still. Fearing the worst we began to dig through the rubble looking for survivors, so far we haven’t found any only the bodies of the Dark Jedi, but we haven’t found either Ashanti’s or her friend’s body either.” The Jakob sighed. “You know the rest.”
“Alive, she is still.” Piped up Yoda, “Force would tell me if my Padawan has crossed over.”
So the digging continued, with members of the Jedi Council joining into the effort to find Ashanti in time, the rocks were literally flying out of the way in an effort to reach either Ashanti or Mariko in time. At last another body was found. A scrap of bright red fabric stuck out from between two rocks Mace and a few miners heaved the stone out of the way, and there tucked in a small crevice created by the falling stones and earth was one very battered and seemingly out cold Mariko. Mace spied her tattoo and sighed. “She’s got to be the Knight that Ashanti told us about she’s still alive thank the Force.”
Yoda hopped to where the young woman lay and carefully peered at her. “Trance she is in, to conserve her air supply. Clever girl, take her out Master Windu a small Force probe should bring her out of it.” Mace nodded and carefully reached down to pick her up, hoping that there were no more serious injuries the he could unintentionally make worse.
Closing his eyes Yoda sent out a short sharp message through the remains of his teaching bond with Ashanti, the theory was that the Knight and Ashanti were in the same area when the cave in occurred. Hopefully this would get her attention and locate her that much faster.
Yoda’s small face broke into a huge grin as his former Padawan gave him a mental earful. “Over there she is.” He happily crowed motioning with his glimmer stick to a mound of rocks nearby. “Alive she is still, and very upset she is.” Yoda’s smile never faded when at last the familiar Titanian form was pulled out from under the earth and rocks that had buried her.
“I need a vacation.” She groaned several minutes later as various healers hovered around her patching her small scrapes and scratches and making sure she was none the worse for wear despite being buried alive for almost two full days. Like Mariko she too had gone into a trance like state and was woken up by Yoda’s mental knock. She mentioned if anybody knew where Mariko was and if she was all right.
A short sharp yelp of shock soon answered that question.
Mariko first came back to reality with a sort of a tap on the shoulder via the Force as Ashanti called it, Knights never gave a name to the power and essence that all creatures and things had, but hey the Force was a good name for it. Taking the cue Mariko began to pull her self out of the trace, it was slow going at first, but she was soon able to begin to open her eyes and gave the most undignified yelp imaginable.
There standing over her was a troll, no other way to describe this fella, no way. He was short wrinkled and green, with tufts of white hair over ears as long as her own except they came out of the side of his head while her ears came out of the top. After a few calming breaths she muttered. “Jedi Council member I assume?”
“Good morning Long Ears! Did you like that wake up call?” Ashanti crowed as she spotted her former Master looking over Mariko. Seeing Yoda first thing after you woke up was not fun, as she knew from experience. A glare from both Yoda and Mariko was the only answer she got.
After both Ashanti and Mariko recovered they had explained that the original plan was to only set off small explosions to scare away both the miners and the Dark Jedi. But since neither was all too knowledgeable in how much explosive to use they sort of caused the cave in by accident. Neither admitted exactly which one set off the final charge either.
Mariko’s trip home took yet another detour. She was roped to assist Ashanti in giving a final report to the rest of the Jedi Council. So after making sure the last of the Dark Jedi were dead, helping the existing miners and the new comers from the Order get settled in. Then moving her ship with Ashanti, Master Windu, and Master Yoda back to give a formal report to the remaining ten members of the council.
At times like this she was really glad that the Knights didn’t have an internal structure anymore. As she was making her way back to the hangers to finally head home she was ambushed yet again by her newest friend.
“Oh did you think you could escape that easily?” Snickered Ashanti as she dropped from the ceiling to land in front of Mariko.
“No I did not.” Came the reply, Mariko shook her head, Ashanti was a great deal like her. Rules were not made to be broken, they were made to be bent severely, but not broken. “So I guess this is good bye uh?”
“Maybe not, there are things called com-links you know, the Council is almost hoping that you would stay for awhile, our knowledge of Knights is limited, you could help us learn.” Ashanti casually mentioned.
“No they do not want me to stay, they are afraid of what the two of us together would do to this place. I heard one Master mutter something about Chaos Incorporated if I was going to stay for the long term.” Grinned Mariko.
Ashanti didn’t bother to hide the snicker. “Too true besides, I have a mission now, so you would be alone here for the most part.” She sighed.
Mariko got a grin. “Where is this mission? Maybe I could give you a lift?”
Ashanti got a bigger grin and rubbed her hands together. “Can I drive?”
“Heck no!” Yelled Mariko as Ashanti made a beeline for her jet.
“I call shotgun!” Yelled Ashanti.
“Keep away from the driver’s seat you Spike Tailed Menace!” Yelled Mariko in return. As the two ran off into the hangers Mace Windu who was close enough by to hear the entire exchange shook his head in chagrin.
The Force was never going to be the same with those two around…
END!