And with that, my self-indulgent nonsense is complete!
-----------------
Fox has to supervise the tracker they brought in from off-world. Prime’s redhead, as Wolffe called her. Redhead is a bit much, he thinks, considering that head is more of a shock of pink.
Whatever. Not his business.
She seems… more of a bounty hunter than he expected. Boba had said she doesn’t fight, but she moves like she does. Not a soldier, not an assassin, but still capable of a good scrap.
Someone asks her if she needs some kind of sample to find Ventress, like clothing with a scent or the like.
“I am not a massif,” she snaps. After a moment, she says, “you have blood? Not dry.”
They do not have a blood sample from Asajj Ventress.
She rolls her eyes, as if they are all making this very hard for her on purpose. Fox meets Wolffe’s eyes, and does his best to project natborns. Wolffe grimaces like he gets it.
Fox watches the hope leave from the Jedi, as they ‘realize’ how bad of a plan this was, and then Uzumaki turns and starts moving people.
Koon, Billaba, and Commander Dume to one side. Yoda and Fisto to another. Windu off on his own.
“Type,” Uzumaki tells them.
Fox wonders what the hell she’s doing, but then Koon says, “ah. The lightsabers.”
He draws his own, lights it, and gestures to the blade. “Mine, Master Billaba’s, and Padawan Dume’s are all blue. Masters Yoda and Fisto have green blades, and Master Windu has purple.”
Uzumaki’s eyes narrow. She tilts her head, gestures as if demanding proof, and they all light their sabers to prove it.
She drifts closer. Fox rests a hand on his blaster, though he has an odd feeling that it won’t help much if she does do something. After all, there are multiple Jedi Masters in the room.
“There is… something small,” she says, looking at Koon’s lightsaber, but not touching it. “Like… stars.”
“The kyber crystal,” Koon says, and then hurries to explain at the unimpressed look he gets, “a rock, clear but with color. They help power the saber.”
Uzumaki nods slowly. “The mark?”
Mark? Like for a con? Girl, this is a target.
“Red,” Windu says. “It’s not a natural color. She bled her crystals.”
Uzumaki does not look any more impressed with him than she did with Koon.
“She gave her kyber her pain and anger, until they also hurt,” Windu tries instead.
With a nose-wrinkle of distaste, Uzumaki asks, “the rock thinks?”
Fox is also curious as to this question. The hedging hand-wiggle is almost a disappointment.
“Red stone,” Uzumaki says, “do you have a sample?”
They do. They get it, from wherever it’s hidden away. The Jedi are uncomfortable with it, though only Dume is young enough to really shy away. Uzumaki makes a face, picks up the saber it’s housed in, and closes her eyes.
Considers.
“I can use this,” she says, though she immediately hands it back.
She does a weird motion with her hands. Closes her eyes again. Says something, kagura shingan, that means nothing to Fox.
And then she opens her eyes and says, “more than one. Closest is… that way. Fifty? Kiromētoru, a little more?”
“In miles,” Boba pipes up.
She shoots him a look, as if he should know better. “I do not know.”
Boba frowns and thinks very hard. “Um… I think... the ratio was something like three miles is five of those things. About that?”
So thirty miles? Well. At least Boba’s being helpful, if only to enjoy the dawning horror of the Jedi.
“That direction,” Fox says pleasantly, “is the Senate.”
And suddenly, everyone gets very urgent about things.
Fox doesn’t bother to take charge, because it’s kind of nice to let the Jedi manage the tracker like this. Fox does take charge of Boba, pulling him over to that Dume kid and saying, “hold hands.”
Boba tries to kick Fox instead, which is stupid of him. Kind of endearing, but stupid.
“Caleb isn’t coming,” Billaba informs him. “We have a mission of our own to prepare for.”
“I don’t need a babysitter!” Boba spits.
“You need to be watched,” Fox says, as drily as he can. He gestures to a few of his men. “Keep an eye on him.”
“Are you going with the Jedi?” Porkchop asks; as a medic, he’s definitely going with the field team.
…which has already left.
“Yes,” Fox says, hurrying after them and ignoring the squabbling children behind him. “Come on.”
Chakra is not the Force, but they're not entirely separate, either. That means a few things, but key among them:
Uzumaki Karin is still the best tracker alive,* even in a different galaxy.
* opinions may vary
Originally brainstormed here (contains spoilers for chapter 2).
MY HORRIBLE GIRL WHO SUCKS SO BAD, I LOVE HER SO MUCH.
If you read this and don't already know: I love Karin. She is my favorite Naruto character. She's awful and that is so important to me.
-------------------------
There’s a woman living in the woods.
Red hair, so bright it’s almost pink. Glasses. A bad attitude.
No grasp of Basic. Absolutely none.
Mihaye has been a bartender for a long time. Several human lifetimes. He hears all the gossip that happens in this city. The woman is not the strangest thing he’s ever encountered, but as time passes, he realizes that she’s kind of up there.
Technically, nobody should be living in the woods.
Nobody can enforce that, though. They tried. She escaped, multiple times, and eventually they just… gave up.
She hunts, they know. Brings in the skins to trade for cash. Everyone’s pretty sure she steals from the orchards, too, but they can’t prove it.
And then she shows up at his bar and watches the other patrons. Picking at information. Mihaye doesn’t know what she’s looking for, given that she doesn’t even speak the language, except then she comes up to the bar and deposits four credits, pointing to a human patron’s glass.
She was gauging drink prices so he wouldn’t mark her up.
Fair enough.
He pours it for her, takes the credits, and moves on. He keeps an eye on her just in case, but there’s not much to notice. She just sits with her back to the bar, sipping on liquor, watching the room.
The red eyes with the indistinct pupils have him thinking near-human, but he’s not sure what kind. Mixed, maybe.
She looks far too skinny to be able to do all the things the rangers had suggested of her, escaping through the trees and throwing assailants several meters at a time… but they’d also said she ran on water, so maybe her near-human species was just stronger than the average in addition to whatever that was.
People do look at her. Most are assessing. A few are leering. Mihaye has other shit to focus on, but he’s also not immune to the question of ‘wait, why do her clothes look ironed?’
She’s living in the woods.
Where did she get lipgloss.
Mihaye assumes she stole it. Most people probably do.
She turns back to him, at some point, putting down another four credits and pushing the glass of ice back to him. Requesting a refill.
He gestures for her to wait a moment as he finishes up with another customer.
She blinks and waits, and as he wipes down the bar, he hears a slam and a scream. He whips around, and sees that the woman has slammed one of the regulars face down against the bar, nose already bleeding, and arm wrenched so far back that nobody would be surprised if the shoulder was torn.
She sniffs and lets go, and the man slides and stumbles to the ground, groaning.
Unable to use words, on account of that pesky language barrier, Mihaye does his best to gesture what the kriff was that?
She makes a face, nose wrinkling, and then points to the man, turns sideways, and grabs her own ass.
…well, that’s pretty clear.
Not unexpected, either.
“Gean, I thought you said you understood when we told you that we’d kick you out if you got grabby with other patrons again,” Mihaye says.
From the ground, Gean, garbles something, spits—great, now they’ll have to clean up bloody phlegm from the hardwood—and shouts, “she broke my nose!”
The woman looks down at him with an expression of such disgust that Mihaye can only assume she’s about to hit him again.
He calls for security and reaches over to, barely, tap her hand. She manages to get a kick in on Gean’s ribs before he does, but it doesn’t seem to be that hard. For a given value of it.
“I know you don’t understand me,” Mihaye says, “but if you do that again, I’ll have to kick both of you out. You got a good hit in, leave the rest to security.”
Her lip curls, but she seems to get the gist of it. She steps away from Gean and crosses her arms across her chest as security hauls him away.
