See Chapter 1 for Copyright & Fair Use Disclaimer

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Author's Note: Sorry this was late. I've been busy with stuff. I'll be bringing back Fanfiction Multiverse soon, I've also started moving my channel to LBRY and BitChute. The Podcast will NO LONGER be on YouTube, look for it BitChute and LBRY for now on.

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"I've been wondering about something."

Jedi Master Mace Windu studied a detailed holographic map of the known galaxy. He noticed something and after careful consideration formulated a question.

"What is that?" Jiraiya asked him.

"Who told you you're planet is in the unknown regions?" Jiraiya had to think a bit on that one.

He replied, "Actually, nobody."

The ebonned toned Jedi Master gave him a quizzical look. "After studying the map of the galaxy I had first assumed our world was in the unknown regions, but then I noticed something important that told me maybe it wasn't. Do you see it, Master Jedi?"

Mace nodded, "Your ship was programmed to travel to Coruscant. To reach Tatooine you would have had to pass the Coruscant system to get there." He pointed to the hyperspace routes shown on the map. If the ship had indeed come from the unknown regions it would have had to travel across half the galaxy reach Tatooine. Therefore, it didn't make sense to think the ninja's homeworld was in the unknown regions.

"And yet, we can't get a signal to or from our homeworld," Jiraiya frowned. It had not been for a lack of trying. Mace had delivered a special beacon to help the shinobi find their home planet. According to all reports, the device arrived intact and was functioning but there was still no signal.

That only meant two things. One, the homeworld of the ninja was somehow outside of the galaxy, or two, their homeworld was located near some anomaly in space that affected communications. That narrowed the search parameters to only a few thousand possible locations. There were also a number of globular clusters, groupings of older stars just outside the galaxy but still accessible via hyperspace lanes.

"Perhaps we are approaching this problem from the wrong direction," Mace pondered out loud. He thought for a moment and then an idea formed.

"Your sealing scrolls," he asked. "Is it possible to safely seal a living being inside them for the purposes of transport?" He could almost see the gears turning in Jiraiya's head.

Jiraiya nodded, "In theory, sealing is usually limited to inanimate objects like ninja tools, clothing, corpses, and foodstuffs. It is also possible to seal chakra, that's how we're able to summon toads to send messages to and from our homeworld. The conditions inside a seal though aren't made for living things, I'd have to experiment with an entirely new kind of sealing jutsu. As far as I know nothing like that has ever been attempted before."

Mace asked him. "How long would it take you research such a seal?" He was formulating and idea but wanted to hear what Jiraiya said first before proposing it.

"Oh, a few months," Jiraiya told him. "About half a year at best, I'd have to do a lot of experimentation. That would mean experimenting with live subjects, small animals. Would you be alright with that?"

Mace frowned, "I am loath to want to cause harm to living creatures." He had to really think about this one. He could see the benefits of having sealing scrolls that could seal living things. They'd make transporting dangerous criminals and lifeforms much easier and safer. They could be used in medical emergencies, but his teachings in the Jedi doctrine fought hard against the cost of such an innovation.

Then, Jiraiya seemed to have an idea, "I've heard stories about something called carbonite freezing and that live subjects have been successfully preserved and unfrozen after several years."

That was it, carbonite freezing had indeed been used in the past to preserve living things. Long ago, before the development of hyperdrives, space travelers would be carbon frozen for decades or even centuries during space flights. It wasn't always safe, some subjects didn't survive the freezing process but under the right conditions those risks could be mitigated.

"Master Jiraiya, I have an idea."

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Chapter 7

The Battle of Naboo.

That is what it would come to be called, but Padme wasn't concerned about what future historians might say about the conflict that was soon to come. They were on the silver Nubian counselor's ship speeding its way through hyperspace back to a world occupied by the forces of the Trade Federation. All she had were two Jedi, a little boy who had the potential to become a Jedi but that future was uncertain, and another young boy with strange and uncanny powers she could never understand. A young boy who has seen more death and battle than someone his age should ever experience. Yet, it didn't seem to affect him not one bit. He was cheerful, friendly, it was as if he possessed this unfathomable power to make people believe in him. For some reason she couldn't grasp, she felt that because of his presence their chances of coming out of this alive had more than doubled.

He was sitting at a table going through his ninja tools. She had no idea what most of those things were. Anakin called the small pieces of paper exploding tags, but how do you make paper explode? The knives she understood, Naruto carried a lot of them, and there were these star-shaped throwing weapons too called shuriken. Some had been fitted with electronics to specifically fight droids, otherwise, knives in this situation would be useless. There was a stack of papers with a slightly different series of complex writing on them Naruto had called experimental tags. He carried quite a few of these.

Most of her attention was drawn to his swords. Naruto carried two of them and they were laid out on the table in their scabbards. She had only heard about vibroswords in history texts, she'd never seen them in person before. They were ancient weapons from an era of galactic history when the Jedi and Sith fought long, drawn-out wars for the fate of the galaxy. The weapons were made of a metal woven with refined cortosis threads which made them resistant to lightsabers. They created a vibrating field which cut through most materials almost as easily as a lightsaber would. Jedi were never known to use them except during training, and they were mostly used by Republic forces to give them a fighting chance. Non-Force sensitive Sith army forces also used them. They were beautiful, elegant weapons from a long forgotten age.

"Where did you find these?" she asked, still marveling at the weapons on the table.

"On the ship that brought me and Ero-sensei to Tatooine," Naruto explained as he began packing all of his ninja tools back into his pouch. How he got that much into such a tiny space was amazing. Then, what he did next shocked her. He put s stack of knives on top of a large piece of paper inscribed with complex lines and writing in an alien language she not familiar with. Naruto did something with his hands and in a poof of smoke the knives were gone, then he rolled the paper up and put it in his pouch.

She pointed, mouth agape, "H-how? How did you do that? Where did those knives go?"

Naruto just smiled and said, "This is a sealing scroll, I got a lot of these. You can put almost anything in them."

Did she just hear him right? "Wait...are you telling me that your people can store objects inside pieces of paper?" How could they be that advanced and not have space travel?

"Sure," he replied as if it wasn't a big deal. "We do it all the time. Ero-sensei even taught me how to make my own sealing scrolls. Makes it easy to carry a lot of extra gear and food for long missions."

The revelation of this technology...magic...or whatever it was could have profound effects on the galaxy. It could revolutionize shipping and trade or revolutionize war. She could just imagine what the Hutts or the Pykes would do with something like this. A single one-man ship could potentially smuggle hundreds of tons of contraband into Republic space. The Pykes would kill to get this "technology", it would let them ship a frightening amount of spice and death sticks with little to almost no chance of being caught.

"How does it work?" she asked him, her curiosity overcoming her fear.

Naruto scrunched up his face, "Uh, Ero-sensei tried explaining it, but I didn't really get it. I know the hand signs and markings needed to make it work though, so I can make my own when I need to."

"Can anyone use them?" she asked. Here was the important question, if this knowledge got out how easily could it be replicated.

"You gotta be able to mold chakra," he told her. "So, only a ninja can do it. If you also put a blood seal on it then only the person who made it can use it. Like this…" He then proceeded to bite his thumb drawing a bit of blood, smeared it across a series of complex runes on another scroll and immediately a stack of throwing stars appeared in a puff of smoke. He then reversed the effect, once again using his blood from this thumb.

"See?" he smiled innocently.

"So, only someone like you and Jiraiya can use these?" he nodded. Padme nearly sighed with relief. If this were to ever get out to the public in a form that could be used by regular people it would definitely have to be regulated. The Republic had no laws in place at the moment to deal with something like this.

Sometime later Sabe swept into the room followed by Jar Jar Binks and Qui Gon Jinn. The Gungan had mentioned his people had a grand army. Everything counted on them being able to convince the gungans to help them fight the Trade Federation. There had always been strained relations between the people of Naboo and the gungans. They would have to overcome decades of prejudice and mistrust to make this work. Without them, taking back Naboo was going to be nearly impossible. The Jedi was right, he couldn't fight a war for them.

At some point, she was going to have to drop the charade. Sabe was a good body double, not only did she look like her and sound like her, but she also knew what she might say or think in a given situation. This, though, might be too much for her to handle. She was going to have to step in which meant revealing who she really was...the true Queen of Naboo. Padme wondered if the Jedi had already guessed Sabe wasn't the real Queen Amidala. He likely did and out of respect wasn't saying anything.

Her train of thought was interrupted when Captain Panaka announced the ship would be coming out of hyperspace soon. They were at the point of no return, she was committed. There was no turning back now. Either this day would end with her death or Naboo would once again be a free world.

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Padme was a bit shocked at how easy it was to get the gungans to help them. Her show of humility, dropping to her knees and begging them to help had left an impression. However, it was what Naruto said that truly set things in motion. In the brief time, she knew him, Padme never thought of Naruto as really all that bright, but what he said demonstrated wisdom that far exceed his years.

"Someone once told me a house divided cannot stand," he had said. "I never really got what that meant for a long time, but now I do. It is time to let go of the hate, it never gets you anywhere. I know, I lost one of my closest friends I ever had to blind hate. You and Padme's people, you aren't so different. You both love your children, you both want to protect your people, you both love this world. This planet doesn't belong to either of you, it belongs to both of you. If you both can't fight for it, who will? How long will you last after Padme's people lose this fight, how long can you hide before you're found? It doesn't have to be that way, both of you love this world, so I say stand with the Naboo and fight. You can lift each other up and become stronger. On my world, we call this the will of fire and you both have it. Right now it is just a small flame but if you work together that'll become a blaze so bright so hot nothing will stop you."

Now, the portly Gungan leader Boss Nass was with them planning out their strategy. While she and the Jedi lead a small force into the city, the gungans would stage a distraction to draw the bulk of the Federation's droid army out of Theed. The force that would enter the city would be small and divided into two groups. Her group would scale the palace to reach the viceroy, while the other would create a distraction for what droid forces were left in the city. But, first, however, they would need to climb the sheer waterfall cliffside to reach Theed. She chose this course because it was less likely they'd be spotted. The ground around the city was too open, they'd be seen before they even reached the outskirts of the capital.

Nubian security forces who had been hiding since the invasion had now joined her group. The great cliff side and waterfall would pose a challenge to climb, she knew. When she was younger she sometimes scaled this rocky wall and often got scolded for it. She and Captain Panaka scaled the damp rocky cliff together. The Jedi and Anakin were ahead of them, which was no surprise. She nearly lost her grip when Naruto nonchalantly "walked" past her. He was just walking, his feet planted against the stone as if gravity didn't matter.

"How is he doing that?" she heard Panaka gasp, his eyes bulging slightly.

"Naruto," she called out to him and the blonde haired, blue eyed boy turned to look at her.

"W...what are you doing?" she waved in his direction. "How are you doing that?"

He pointed at himself, "What, you mean this?" He proceeded to walk around in a circle.

"This is ninja wall walking," he told her with a goofy smile as if that was supposed to make sense. She could see Qui Gon Jinn looking down at them. His expression betrayed no surprise at what he was seeing.

"Can all of your people do this?" she asked him, he shook his head.

"Only ninja can," he explained. "I learned it from Kakashi-sensei, but at that time I was climbing a tree." A vision of Naruto calmly walking up the trunk of a tree came to mind. The thought was so absurd but she couldn't deny was she was seeing.

"I'd give anything to be able to do it too," she heard Panaka grouse as he continued the arduous climb.

"This is nothing, wait until you see me walk on water." the boy laughed.

"Wait, he can walk on water too!?" Panaka almost lost his grip but Padme reached and steadied him.

Finally, they reached the top of the cliff. Sade and her group were already beginning to organize their distraction. Padme checked the chronometer on her wrist, the gungans would begin mobilizing on the grassy hills outside the city soon. When that happened, she fully expected half or at least most of the droid forces in the city would withdraw to confront them. She would have to be ready to do her part when that happened.

She knew this part of Theed like the back of her hand and led her group to just outside the royal palace. They had a clear view of the front courtyard, but her attention was on a side entrance which would take them through the main hangar bay. Their pilots who accompanied them would fly out in N-1 starfighters to assault the trade federation's lucrehulk in orbit. Taking out that command ship was vital to securing Naboo. Trade Federation droids operated via a remote centralized brain supercomputer. This made the droids cheaper and exploited certain loopholes in Republic law, but it was a major weakness. Lucrehulks are big ships so Padme was concerned that their limited all volunteer only security force might not be enough to take it down.

"Looks like most of their forces have left to meet the Gungans," Captain Panaka said. They all hid behind a wall with one opening that gave them the view of the palace courtyard.

"We need that distraction," she said.

"Don't worry, I got that covered," she turned to Naruto who stood next to the Jedi with a very self-satisfied smile on his face.

"You're a shadow clone, aren't you." That had been more of a statement than a question coming from young Anakin. Padme had no idea what he meant by that but Naruto nodded, stifling a laugh.

"What's a shadow clone?" she asked, keeping her voice down.

Qui Gon explained, "Our young friend here has the ability to create solid copies of himself that can operate on their own with independent thought."

"He can do what?" Captain Panaka gaped, he also mindfully kept his voice low.

Padme saw Anakin give a shrug, "He does it all the time, sometimes makes it easier to get work done. Mom calls it cheating, though." Padme boggled at this, but she remembered the sight of Naruto walking up a sheer cliff as if it was nothing.

"Where did they come from," Captain Panaka quietly called out a warning. Padme peered carefully into the courtyard, a column of six droid troopers had rounded a corner and were marching towards the small force that protected the palace's main entrance. That force consisted of three armored assault tanks and several dozen droid troopers. Sabe's team should be procuring an armed speeder at this same moment.

"It must be a patrol," Obi-Wan added and she shared the same thought, then Naruto let out a stifled giggle.

"Those aren't droids," was all Anakin said.

One by one, the droids began to peel off the column in go different direction, some joined other groups of droids and some went to the tanks. The ones that went to the tanks looked around as if making sure they wouldn't be seen then reached out and slapped something onto the hull of the tanks. The exploding tags she'd seen Naruto sorting on the ship suddenly came to mind. The other droids quietly slapped similar tags to the back of other droids in passing.

"Hey, what group are you assigned to?" one of the droids stationed in the turret of a tank called down to the newcomers.

"Uh, we're with the five hundred and first," one of the new droids replied nervously.

"The five hundred and first," the droid sounded august. "This isn't your sector, you're supposed to be in area eighty-two."

The wandering droid scratched its head, "Uh my bad, we'll go there right away."

"Wait a minute, what's your designation?"

"I've got a bad feeling about this," Obi-Wan muttered. Padme had no clue what was going on but somehow those strange droid troopers had something to do with Naruto. Anakin said they weren't droids, then what were they? They couldn't be Naruto's copies or shadow clones, that was impossible...or was it. Either she was going crazy or this boy was somehow something that exceeded the power of a Jedi. How was that even possible?

"Well, you see, uh," the droid stammered, then shouted. "See ya losers!" And like that the strange droids popped out of existence in a puff of smoke.

"Kai!" the sudden shout from Naruto ushered a series of detonations. These were a lot more powerful than Padme had expected. Two of the tanks were immediately taken out of commission, one was still operational, but weapons fire from Sabe's group quickly dispatched it. The remaining droids that had been blown apart or caught up in the explosions started shooting wildly. Padme barely made out Sabe and her group in the billowing smoke, they were making their move.

"Let's go!"

Naruto's stunt had thinned out the forces protecting the palace by a third so their path to the hangar entrance faced little resistance. What droids were there to stop them quickly met an end by either blaster fire or lightsaber. Naruto had both of his vibroblades out and kept himself low so as not to be an easy target. He didn't deflect droid blaster fire like the Jedi, but instead ducked down under their firing arc and dodged whenever he could. Padme wasn't focused on this though, all her thought was on reaching the palace and making it inside which they finally did after removing some droids that blocked their way.

During the firefight she noticed Anakin had taken refuge in one of the starfighters along with R2D2. The pilots she brought with her went immediately to their starfighters. She saw one of them go down, taken out by a tank that must have been stationed just outside the hangar. That brave soul would be honored for his courage when this was all over with, she'd make sure of it. The rest of them had made it, she hoped they would be enough to take the command ship. Her immediately concern now was reaching the main audience chamber. Nute Gunray, Viceroy of the Trade Federation, was a vain man so she'd most likely find him there.

Her attention suddenly went to a set of blast doors, behind them stood a figure cloaked in black. He raised a long metal rod which she immediately guessed as a lightsaber. First one, then two slender crimson blades hissed into existence. Without a word, Qui Gon and Obi-Wan moved in front of her as to shield her from him. This was the would-be assassin who came to Mos Sukui and was later driven off by Naruto and the Jedi Master. Naruto moved in beside them twin swords in hand.

"We'll handle this," said Qui-Gon, then he turned to Naruto. "Go with the Queen, keep her safe. If he is a Sith only Obi-Wan and I can handle him."

"You sure about this," Naruto's voice was hard, and it could have been a trick of the light, the angle from which she saw his face, but Padme could have sworn that Naruto's eyes had changed color to a deep red.

He looked back at her, his eyes had indeed not only changed color but his pupil was now elongated. The Jedi ignited their lightsabers, "Very certain, my friend. Now go, make sure she reaches the viceroy."

"Come on, Naruto, they have their job we have ours," she would have to thank Captain Panaka, his words reached the young shinobi and his eyes shifted back to normal. It was amazing to watch but she'd have to wait until later to find out what that was all about.

"Right," the boy agreed and they turned toward another set of blast doors leading into the palace. They didn't get very far, a pair of droideka came rolling in out of nowhere. Padme dived for cover just in time to avoid their blaster fire. She crouched behind some crates and fired back but her blaster bolts bounce harmlessly off of their shields. Across the chamber, the two Jedi were too preoccupied with their own dangerous opponent to lend them any assistance.

Suddenly, little Anakin's starfighter roared to life. As the ship turned for its preprogrammed launch sequence the forward blasters fired overwhelming the droideka's shields. Both were taken out by blaster fire just before the starfighter engined boosted out of the hangar bay. Blaster bolts from the tank outside streaked across the sky but easily missed their target.

"What was he thinking?" Padme felt deep concern for the little boy. He had put his life on the line so they could get to Coruscant and now here he was again putting himself in even greater danger.

Naruto didn't seem concerned, "Don't worry, Ani's a way better pilot than I am. He'll be just fine." His grin and thumbs up for some inexplicable reason filled her with sudden confidence.

"Let's not keep the Viceroy waiting," with a feeling of renewed strength and courage she sprinted for the blast doors.

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Sabe hoped that Padme had made it into the palace. Her group was still pushing their way into the ground floor galleries of the palace. Fighting alongside her group was two identical copies of young Naruto. She couldn't tell them apart, even their voices were the same. Earlier she'd seen his incredible feat of walking up the cliff face. This young man was surpassing all of the stories she ever heard about the Jedi while growing up.

She heard the roar of engines then saw several starfighters stream away from the palace, "The queen has reached the hangar bay, we need to move now!" Sabe leaned out front behind the pillar she was using as cover and dropped one of the droid troopers who were keeping them pinned down.

One of the Narutos shouted, "Leave this to us!" Before she could stop them they sprint out of cover and ran at the droids. They kept their bodies low, arms trailing back at their sides as if they were wings and dodged side to side to avoid the incoming blaster fire. Barely a few seconds later the two Narutos threw a handful of those strange daggers she'd seen him tinkering with several hours ago on the ship.

One would think using knives to fight droids was foolish, but these blades hit with such force that they embedded themselves into their armor. Sabe then watched in fascination as the droids spasmed from powerful electric shocks then dropped to the ground. She stepped out of cover, every droid barring their way to the second floor now lay on the ground smoking and sparking.

One of the Narutos cheered, "YES! I told ero-sensei these new anti-droid kunai would come in handy."

With their path cleared, Sabe gave the order for her men to advance. She was beginning to like this loud, brash, young warrior. There was something in this smile that filled her confidence and renewed strength. This mission was not going to fail, she could feel it in every fiber of her being.

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To be continued...