Chapter III: Fangirls, the Solo kids, and Math
Anakin Solo knew that rummaging about in Uncle Luke's room was not an acceptable pastime. However, he was allowed to be in there – Luke had simply left him alone after they'd watched holos together. Then Anakin had found the box that moved when he looked at it.
Just looked at it. That and pure curiosity said that there couldn't be that much harm in seeing what was in the box.
He peeked in at the sphere of blue goo.
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Luke Skywalker had had a premonition preceding the worst event of his young life, the revelation that Darth Vader was his father. So when he had a quick premonition about Anakin Solo, he ran for his room preparing for the worst. He had thought the kid had been asleep –
It was worse than the worst.
"Is this," Anakin asked as he juggled spheres of cerulean ectoplasm, "how your hair got blue?"
Luke thought, "…!"
"Hmm?" said Anakin.
"Yeah." Luke scooped the goo out of Anakin's hands. It stayed with him in a distinct or maybe imagined shape. "Please don't bother this, Anakin. It's bad."
The little boy looked up with the patented big-eyed kid look that always confused Luke. "Okay. I'm gonna go see Jaina and Jacen, okay?"
"Go ahead."
Luke moved aside as the boy ran past him toward the end of the hall where Jaina and Jacen were playing in an alcove, watched over by C-3PO.
Anakin happily rolled his purloined spheres of goo between his fingers and his pocket.
Luke set the confiscated goo back in the box. "Just one more day…one more day. Then I can give it back to my father!
"He's only ever given me trouble, hasn't he?
"Is this some sort of payment for my chopping his hand off…?"
With these comforting thoughts Luke sealed the box with adhesive he found on a nearby shelf next to a model X-Wing.
Then he lifted the box, and shook it. It felt lighter than before. Or did it? The stuff could be selectively massive.
He knew he had been worrying about it too much. He returned the box to its shelf and sat down on the bed.
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Anakin opened his hands. His older siblings peered at the goo.
Jaina asked, "What is it?"
"You sound like you're saying 'Yuck.'"
"I said 'What is it?'"
"You thought 'Yuck' first."
"Yuck," Jacen said. "Is it alive?"
Anakin thought about it. "I don't know…"
"Let's poke it," Jacen said, "and find out."
Anakin backed away. "How will that let us know if it's alive or not?"
"If it pokes back."
"Good point."
Anakin poked the goo.
Part of it sloshed onto his arm; the other part poked Jacen. He grabbed a handful of it and peered at it closely and seriously.
Meanwhile Anakin was trying to get it off of his arm. He shook the offending appendage.
Goo splattered Jaina.
She did not say "yuck" again. She laughed as goo fell like rain over her. She squinted and concentrated it into a ball with the Force. It wiggled.
Jacen asked, "Is it Force-sensitive?"
"It's Force-ticklish," said Jaina.
"It's tickling me, too," Anakin said, in between giggles. "Can you get it to stop?"
Jaina concentrated, and soon each of the three children had a little ball of goo.
"What now?" Jacen asked.
At this moment, the essential thing to realize is that these are no ordinary children. Their parents spent most of their adult lives in fights for said lives, against myriad opponents of varying quality. These children are genetically predisposed toward adventure and a potentially hazardous curiosity. Not to mention the fact that Lucasfilm and Yours Truly are dead-set on putting them in said hazardous and exciting situations so as to, in the case of the former (and if it were allowed, the latter) make money.
Another essential thing to remember is that children of the Old Jedi Order were discouraged in terms of having possessions. They were not inclined toward teddy bears, plastic pianos, or pets.
Because with the Force comes a curiosity even more powerful than that dictated by genetics.
So when the spheres of azure ectoplasm, corralled into said spheres by Jaina Solo, rolled out of the kids' hands and down the hallway, they had no choice but to follow them. (Note: First it was cerulean ectoplasm, then azure. Apparently when you split it up it becomes a darker shade of blue.)
The triplets of goo rolled determinedly down the halls of the Jedi Temple and led the Solos on a convoluted chase about the third floor. They passed a dozing Chandra-Fan, a girl with a definite sneakiness to her who was carrying a box of sushi and some cookies (or perhaps Wookiee-ookiees) and another, even sneakier, carrying a watering can and occasionally consulting her iBook so as to find the defining characteristics of the Temple she was in.
Eventually, the goo rolled to the feet of a Givin Master, the math instructor.
The Solos looked up at him in fright.
"Hmm," said the Givin. "An imperfect sphere."
The Solos radiated confusion.
"Come here," said the Givin, who took any opportunity to do what it thought was instructive and what most students thought was torturous. It scooped up the goo. The Solos tentatively followed him into his classroom.
He held the sphere up. "It's circumference is 2 pi, it's volume is four-third pi times the radius cubed--"
Before its singsongy voice could continue the kids — and the goo — fled in terror from the math.
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The fangirls continued sneaking about. At on point they found themselves face-to-face. "Where's Obi-Wan?" asked the one with the watering can.
"We're not looking for Obi-Wan," said the other, she who happened to sound just like the narrator, in some confusion.
"We're not? Who're you looking for?"
The one with the sushi and the afore-hidden blaster grinned.
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The Solos and the goo fled obliviously past the fangirls, and ran down the hallway — directly into Han Solo and Leia Organa Solo.
Leia recoiled with a small shriek. Han picked Anakin up; the goo collected in a squishy, semitransparent pool around his feet. "What are you do— oh, Sithspit. You didn't eat any did you?"
"Why would we eat any of it?" asked Jacen,
"I bet it wouldn't taste good," said Jaina.
Anakin hiccupped blue bubbles into Han's face.
Han's expressions went roughly thus!
…
"Stang!shift1"
Leia smacked Han's shoulder. "Don't say things like that around the kids!"
"Sorry…" the Corellian muttered.
"What are we not supposed to say around the kids?" Luke appeared, looking slightly haggard, from around a corner.
"S—"
Leia smote her husband again.
"Ow! I was just going to spell it anyway. S…T…A…A…?"
Anakin interrupted. "I know how to spell!"
"That's nice—" said Luke, then started as he saw the blue goo and the bubbles. He growled, forgoing any curse words at all.
Anakin was rather frightened. However, any seriousness of the situation was interrupted by a curly-haired girl appearing, looking over Jacen's shoulder. "Ooh! Shiny bubbles!"
Another girl came up behind her, and pointedly whispered, "You can't be so distracted! We're on a mission! You—" Then her eyes met Luke's. Distracting, she thought.
"Huh?" said Luke. "You're not students here!"
"Of course not!" said the first girl, raising her watering can in emphasis. "We're just looking for—"
"Shh!" said Distracted Girl. "No worries, we're just…"
The Jedi Master recognized her voice just as she, in her nervous shifting, revealed the blaster held behind her back.
"What's that for?" He exclaimed. He couldn't imagine the two actually being dangerous, and the other one was carrying a watering can.
"It's… for Mara?" She said hesitantly, smiling.
"It's you again!" He almost shouted at the fangirly narrator. "Get out of the story!"
Her partner in crime pulled her away. "You won't find her in this AU anyway," she muttered.
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The children, and the goo, were safely returned to Luke. After one of those nifty subtitles which says "About a day later", Luke stood on the shores of a lake and waited for his father to appear.
Blue ghosty Anakin was slightly late, or so it felt for the Jedi Master who was returning the greatest source of stress in his current life to the netherworld where it belonged.
The goo was floating next to him, bobbing up and down in what Luke hoped was enthusiasm at returning to Anakin, and not some plot to leave a lasting impression of itself on his once-again-black clothes. He glared at it suspiciously.
"I suppose you think you've been funny these last few weeks, don't you?"
The goo did not answer, although, truth be told, with everything else that had happened Luke wouldn't have been too surprised if it did.
"I think I'm going to have a party when you go. Celebrate the fact that I don't have to deal with you anymore. This has not been one of my more pleasant relationships, and that's saying a lot."
"I'll just leave if you want me to. I thought you preferred the angsty emotions," said Anakin, appearing out of the…blue.
"Where did you hear that?"
"I don't know. Some girl running around with a strange concoction of fish and rice."
"Oh, her. Anyway. I think this is yours."
"What is?"
Luke indicated the sphere of floating goo. Anakin blinked.
"Umm… Luke, what is that?"
Luke's answer was to throw the goo unerringly at his father. It hummed happily as it flew and landed on Anakin's shoulder. It looks smaller already, thought Luke, dredging up the last of the untainted optimism from his Whining Days.
"It's yours."
Anakin peered at it. "It is?"
"Look, " said Luke sarcastically. "It likes you."
Indeed the goo had diffused into the rest of the blueish glow surrounding the dead Chosen One. Anakin spun around slowly, looking over his shoulder for what Luke was talking about.
Luke sighed with relief.
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"See," said Fangirl With Sushi. "This is the Yavin IV temple."
"Oh," said Fangirl With Watering Can disappointedly. "How do I get to the old temple?"
"Plot hole."
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And they all lived happily ever after making money for Lucasfilm.