Chapter 7: Chapter 7 : Skywalkers?
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Change of POV: 3rd POV
After the small debacle between Alex and criminals, and later the summoning of Noble 6 now known as Leo-B312, Alex rummaged through the corpses of the bandits who tried robbing her just moments ago.
All for the usage of current resources at disposal after all.
It was a worthy shot, all in all, Alex managed to get about a several dozens of coins from them, several big ones, most are medium ones with several small ones.
Alex will need to check the worthy of these currency later on, she can't just ask a random shop-keeper on how much is one coin worthy, considering how much of a shit-hole Tatooine is, they would all try to scam her.
Even if she has a gun pointed at their face, it's just how common such situation would be here, it's absurd on 10 out of scale one through ten.
So instead, she will ask a random homeless kid on a street.
So, with intimidating postures, both a Spartan and Princess left the alleyway, but not without worrying glances being shoot their way, from all people.
From homeless kids on the streets, to slaves, to big shoots, to potential bounty hunters or even shop owners.
Everyone paid some amount of their time to inspect new 'arrivals', just how they wanted.
'Most likely not expecting me to come out?' Alex though as she turned on her heel and walked away, with Leo behind her, with his sturdy rifle poised for any action.
His form occasionally twitching, left and right.
Though, only several seconds the attention of people lasted on them before they returned to their own duties.
It can be due to intimidating armor of theirs.
Or..
It's most-likely that this type of occurrence might be pretty common for them, hence their uncaring nature.
After all. 'This is Tatooine.'
It didn't much of time for Alex's biology to react eventually.
With that out of the way, Alex's stomach soon growled.
~Growl~
Ales is slightly embarrassed as she made a sharp turn towards the left.
"Alex?" You can guess who asked.
His form poised for anything and everything, every single turn, every corner..
His form twitched with possible xenophobia.
"I'll go eat something first, I'm hungry. Very Hungry." It didn't take them long to find something for human consumption, as just when they turned around the corner towards the left, they saw a stand.
A simple, yet extraordinary stand for Star Wars Technology levels, in a corner of the street, just perfectly below the shadow of a buildings.
Shadow providing a nice shelter from the sun.
But what really caught Alex's attention would be the food which can be bought on the stand.
Stand with hot-dogs, with a picture of a cow drawn above it. And a literal Hot-Dog beside it.
And a yellow skinned Twi'lek woman selling them. Though that one part was not one of interest.
They walked towards the stand, menacingly, or at last so in Noble 6's way.
It's as if Noble 6 tried intentionally to broaden himself much more, so to appear much dangerous, a fact that Alex missed to notice till now.
But a fact that most people on Tatooine did not, and thus avoided them like a plague.
Twi'lek's eyes widened upon seeing them approaching, as she turned towards them with a professional smile at top of her face.
She smelled money from them.
Raised her body up from the bench where she was sitting on.
'She might have though us to be maybe Bounty Hunters? Or Mandalorians?' Alex though as she approached the seller, in tow with Leo behind her.
"We'd like 6 of these." Alex pointed towards the Hot-Dogs with cow drawn over them, she noticed a couple of others, but with different kind of animals.
She wasn't interested in trying anything new right now, she just wants to eat something consumable and that's it.
At least, anything better to wash her mouth from those military rations back from the Condor-Class Dropship.
And..
'Is that a dinosaur hot-dog?' She though, as she noticed a feathered Raptor drawn near different Hot-Dog, but she shook her head at that ridiculous though. She'll be satisfied with something for Human consumption, even how much she wants to try it, she will restrain herself.
Who knows what disease she could gain too..
Twi'lek allowed a small smile to bloom on her face as she replied. " Per your orders Miss." She crouched down.
Though, as she did so, Spartan moved.
Due to that action, Leo couldn't help but walk forward and glance at what she is doing.
Just inspection, should be all right?
She crouched down, and opened the doors leading to her 'stand'.
The stand itself apparently acts a refrigerator, with countless 'Buckets' with different 'hot-dogs soon to be'.
And with ice all around the buckets, and in buckets themselves.
And the woman picked six of them from a bucket with a cow drawn over it.
She stood up quickly, before looking at small stove on the stand. She put the Hot-Dogs in a clean bowl she prepared just earlier.
Then she crouched down, and took a small bowl containing oil, she circled the hot dogs in the oil before looking back towards the stove.
Stove is more like ten different metal-like small pipes. These ten different pipes are connected to the stand itself, with the other side not being connected with anything.
The Twi'lek woman simply stabbed the hot dogs from the other side.
As she did so, her eyes lingered to a button on the other side of the stand. Her finger moved towards it.
And pressed the button on the stand.
The pipes started moving in circles, then she pressed a second button, and the stand below the hot dogs opened, to reveal a true 'stove', which started spurting flames.
'I see.' Is what Alex though as the Twi'lek woman turned towards her, still with that slightly annoying smile on her face.
"One Hot-Dog is 2 Wupiupi. " She extended her green colored hand with expectations. " 6 Hot-Dogs would be 12 Wupiupi." She spoke.
Alex tilted her head before her right hand flew towards the small pouch near her M6C pistol.
It didn't miss the Twi'lek's eyes on how Alex tapped the pistol, a clear sign of warning.
Which Twi'Lek understood if her suddenly strained smile is anything to go by.
The pouch is the one she stole from Horned guy earlier after she stole all the coins they had.
She took the pouch and took one of the medium-sized coins from it. And gave it to Twi'Lek women in front of her, and silently observed her reaction.
Alex doesn't know the value of Wupiupi, but considering that these hot-dogs are nothing but food, they can't cost much, can they? So she relented in giving one medium-coin.
If women required one more, she will give..
But now, she watched the Twi'lek's expression.
Women took the coin, put it in a purse she took from her back, and took four smaller coins, she smallest ones Alex has in her pouch, and extended them towards Alex who took them.
Alex twirled them for a second.
Before putting them back into the small bag.
And they waited.
But Alex couldn't help but think. 'So smallest coins are called Wupiupi, and one medium-size coin is equal to 16 of them since she only returned 4.' She though.
It didn't take long for Hot-Dogs to be made, as Alex took them in a paper bag and left.
After a bit walking...
Soon enough, they found a bench and Alex sat on it.
Leo on the other hand didn't even try, he weights over 100 Kilograms without armor to begin with, with armor he is weighting over staggering 400+ KG, the bench is destiny bound to break under all that pressure.
So, with that, he acts as a hunting dog, his visor moving back and forth, across the town, glaring at anything that has eyes which may potentially linger on Alex for too long.
Too long is a big word and description.
Too long would be 0,0001 of a second.
Alex took the helmet off, placed it on the bench. Took the paper bag, opened it and pulled a Hot-Dog wrapped in a bread.
Moving it towards her mouth, she clamped her mouth over it.
And chewed.
"Mmm--hmmm!" She certainly can say that taste is even better compared to those of her original world.
While she eat, it didn't gone unnoticed the sudden movements of Leo behind her.
Leo...
Might be more than simply Xenophobic, the story goes that after his parents died due to Covenant, he was enlisted into ONI Spartan-3 Project, with the harsh desire of exterminating Covenant, hence Xenos.
Like almost all Spartans-3s, they all were vengeful orphans.
She genuinely felt bad towards them, and to others in the Halo Universe.
By now it's obvious, this all became her reality.
Not to mention that with this, her appetite has been soiled a bit.
So she spoke.
"Do you want to try one?" Alex asked Leo, as she tilted her head towards him.
"No, thank you Alex. I don't feel comfortable with revealing my face....Here." He replied with a firm shook of his helmet.
Alex didn't want to continue persuading him on this issue, it was clear that he wouldn't back down without an order as 'Princess', and Alex doesn't feel like abusing her power for such meaningless decision.
Instead she decided to continue eating, till she eat four of them and felt full right now.
Opened a small bottle of cold water, or as coldest as possible on Tatooine, drank a bit of water before throwing it into the paper bag.
Her hands moved to her helmet she put on the bench earlier before she picked it up and put it on top of her head.
And they started the real Job from now.
They searched through the Mos Espa for next following hours, exploring the city.
Watching it.
Searching it.
Locating people.
Scouting potential hiding points.
Looking for bars.
Any place of interest.
And most important, searching for Space-Port Buildings, building specifically designed for ships that are dozens of meters long.
People rent these buildings, and they land with ships in them, the ships will be polished, cleaned and repaired by engineers working in those Space-Port building.
Most of those ships belong to Bounty Hunters, or people with big names.
Such examples would be Hutt Family too, or their biggest allies.
And Mos Espa is Space-Port city, possessing several dozens of those Space-Port Buildings.
It took hours for them, but they managed to explore a lot of them.
Searched informations regarding quite many ships, from fighters for one person to those that can house teams.
Of course, those for one or two people were crossed from the list, for long game, and only those of interest remained.
Till they found one that caught Alex interest.
Nubian-Model, similar ship to Naboo Royal Ship.
Almost exactly the one that Naboo Escort used to escape from Naboo.
Meaning it's long and wide enough for everyone in the 'gang' to fit in, with special quarters for 'Queen'.
Enough space for Food storage to boot, the only issue would be piloting it.
But Obi-Wan can do it anyway, that's what Alex though at that time, and didn't dwell much on it after that.
Alex marked this location.
[Space-Port: #05]
And soon, Sand Storm was approaching.
And both of them left, towards where tracker leads them.
Towards the Slave-Sector.
To Skywalker Residence.
And soon, both of them. Alex and Leo stood in front of a house, the similar house like all others here.
Pretty much none of the Slave Masters cared for such difference, all they cared was to provide a roof over the slaves heads along with two meals a day.
But the house is different compared to others, and far more valuable just due to that small difference.
With one significant difference.
Letter : S is written at the top of the doors.
Alex stepped forward, and knocked on the doors.
~Knock!
~Knock!
~Knock!
Three swift knocks, they didn't have to wait long before the doors were opening up.
As the doors opened, a boy was revealed.
Can't be older than ten years old, with short dirty blonde hair, blue eyes,
Wearing black shirt and brown pants.
Boy visibly gulped as he looked at Alex and Leo, specifically at Leo upon noticing the size of a man standing next to Alex.
"How m-might I help you?" He gulped once more, visible fear crossing his features.
And Alex took the matters in her own hands.
"We are Qui-Gon Jinn's friends, he should be here, correct?" Alex squatted down so she could be at eye level with young Anakin Skywalker, the disturbance in the force itself, and smiled beneath the helmet.
Just when Anakin opened his lips to question her own reply, a voice was heard from the house.
"Let them in, Anakin. We know them." A voice that belongs to Qui-Gon Jinn replied out.
"I-I see, then please come in, feel yourself here like home?" It was more of a question than statement as boy stepped away, allowing Alex and her guard in tow to enter before he closed the door behind them.
~Click~ As doors closed.
"This way." Anakin said as he motioned towards another room, he took first steps and followed by Alex and Leo, though due to his curiosity, Anakin couldn't help himself but glance towards them warily.
Especially at Noble 6, who certainly noticed his gaze, and decided to return a nod towards the boy.
'He is from Tattooine, a planet full of mercenaries, bounty hunters, killers and slavers. He might have developed something like an instinct towards Danger.' Alex thought doubtfully as she entered the room followed by Leo.
What they entered appeared to be kitchen.
A simple stove in the corner of the room, beside it is a fridge, and above are several cabinets probably containing spices and similar necessities.
And a table in the middle of the room.
Sitting on the chairs near the table would be: Qui-Gon Jinn who couldn't help but frown upon noticing Leo's presence behind Alex. Padmé too couldn't help but glance towards the giant figure behind Alex, sitting beside them is a known Jar Jar Binks who is eating an apple right now, uncaring of the nature around him.
Ah, such a simple minded creature, many people would be envious of it.
And of course, on the other side of the table is Shmi Skywalker, the mother of Anakin, she cast a worried glance towards Anakin, as she stood up from her seat and spoke. "Good day, Qui-Gon Jinn warned us that their friend might come after them.." She paused, before turning towards Anakin. " Ani, please go and bring two chairs from Auntie Beth in the neighbourhood we gave her two days ago for guests." A subtle meaning, to get the child out of the house.
Anakin only nodded before marching away quickly and fast as his little feet could bring him to. Now they are alone for some time.
It was turn for Qui-Gon Jinn to break the silence. "Who is our new friend?" He motioned towards Leo-B312 standing behind Alex with a fork, his expression uncertain, yet calm.
Alex coughed in her hand simply. And motioned towards Leo. " I remember you asking me where my guards are?"She tilted her helmet towards Padmé who only nodded before a spark of realization dawned on her.
"You are saying.."
Qui-Gon Jinn caught on already, as he let a smile form on his face before his fork stabbed a potato and he eat it.
"Indeed." Alex said as she pointed towards Noble 6 behind her, stepping away and allowing everyone to fully see his form. " You can formally introduce yourself."
And so he did.
Leo-B312 took one step forward, with now everyone's attention on him, he spoke. " I'm Leo-B312 designation, unn-officially changed from Noble Team to Royal Team guarding her Highness,." He saluted.
And the expression on everyone's face was a delight that Alex was sure to savor with pleasure.
Chapter Word Count: 2,551