NationStates Jolt Archive

OOC: Events in this thread take place between the events RPed in Jedi Trial of Position: Somalia (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=526610) and events in Heart of the Empire (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=539240) and Fall from Grace (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=542295) (the latter two RPs occurred pretty much simultaneously in IC time).

Also, due to events in this thread taking place on Dornalian Soil, ND is welcome to post here as well. ND or CW only please.

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Nepotism (http://www.despair.com/nepotism.html)

Truly a shame that the word “nepotism” had not yet found its way into seven-year-old John Masaki’s vocabulary. If he had known what the word meant, it would have been his favorite word. As the only kid to have been adopted into the Masaki family, he, regrettably, recognized it when he saw it. Caught in the no-man’s land between reaping the benefits, no matter how much he disdained them, of using the Masaki name outwardly, yet feeling scorn at “not being a REAL Masaki” on the home front, thanks mostly to Anakin Skywalker…er…Masaki, and to a lesser extent, Katrina and Riley, he found the temptation to just flip his adopted family the bird and revert to using his patronymic becoming more and more irresistible. He had been born into a solid blue-collar family, son of a unionized machinist, and orphaned by civil war. His seven-year-old head had not been able to fathom why he deserved the attention of Coredian high society at all. He was NOT a Masaki.

His vocabulary was not yet well-developed enough for him to truly explain his feelings to Taylor Masaki, the one who adopted him and called him his son. Nevertheless, blood remained thicker than the adoption papers which chained him to this Royal Family of decadence. For the fourteen months the Masakis had had custody of him, they wondered why the hell the kid refused even luxuries such as a nice dinner, eating instead military rations along with a bit of tasteless vegetables on the side for added nutrition. He was not normal, not even in the sense that a Force-sensitive youngling could be “normal.” He refused to be a kid, leaving the Masakis to write off his thoughts as originating from mental trauma suffered during the civil war that orphaned him…

But there was more to it than that, and the Masakis could not, or would not, comprehend it. Anakin, especially, ridiculed him instead. Meanwhile, John barely felt like a life-form at all amongst his own “family.”

The thought of cloaking, stowing away on a transport bound for his home nation, and finding someone else willing to adopt him had crossed his mind more than once. Finally, while Daniel Masaki recovered from injuries, mostly of the liquid-nitrogen-burn variety, suffered during a duel with one now-Jedi Knight and Colonel in the Woodian army, Keith Allaire, John made his feelings known. His alleged “family” suffered telepathic rantings along the lines of “I AM NOT A MASAKI!” over and over. More than once he had wished to be emancipated from this adoption.

Whereupon Daniel had hatched an idea to let Keith deal with the “problem” for a while. Taylor had not been incredibly happy about it, however. John, however, was another story…

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The goodbyes could not be said quickly enough. John wanted out of that stuffy room in UCLA Medical Center, he wanted out of the nepotism of the Masakis, where any accomplishment he could muster was never truly his own, because he never should have had the opportunities that being royalty provided him. Though the idea of having Keith Allaire raise him for the next several months scared him as well. Just not quite as much as he disliked Anakin “Masaki,” whose last name should have been Skywalker.

He wished Taylor would stop crying over it. It wasn’t like any of the rest of the family seemed to care that much that he would be gone. Maybe while he was away in his home nation of Evil Woody Thoughts, he could get his name legally changed to match his patronymic once more…

When the time came for Taylor to let go of his adopted son, he was blubbering like a baby, earning funny looks from his family. One would think there was a funeral going on with the amount of tears streaming from his eyes. Who knew tears could fill up a room?

"Come off it, Taylor! He's only going away for a while." I said, trying to cheer him up.

Taylor honked loudly on a hanky. "I can't help it! I miss him already!"

Jacob sighed. "And Dad called me the baby of the family! What would Teacher think?"

That finally made him stop crying. Fear of Teacher could override any stimulus, it seems. "Well, what are we waiting for? Let's drop the kid off with Keith and let's get going!"

Katrina wouldn't blame her husband and younger brother-in-law if they thought Taylor weird for the sudden moodswing. As for her, she didn't really care one way or another what John did, so long as it wasn't detrimental to her family. Still, the lack of a kid screaming "Royals are Bad!" made her feel relieved. Riley stayed in the background. She'd find other playmates soon enough.

Apathy (http://www.despair.com/ap24x30prin.html)

John sensed it. Not on the part of Taylor, but on the part of Katrina. One of the Evil Trinity of so-called "Light-side" Masakis...Katrina, Anakin, and Riley. Riley would not have been so bad, were it not for the influence of her mother. Oh, yes, John knew full well Katrina would probably throw a party to celebrate his absence. He said nothing. But he knew.

All the more reason to sever himself from Teh Family. Hell, Taylor was the only connection he felt to the assembly gathered at all. And was Taylor worth having to suffer the pretentiousness and arrogance of the rest of them? Probably not.

Then again, was it worth suffering the discipline that the Woodian military was so famous for, to evade the Masakis? John honestly did not know. All he knew was that discipline existed for a reason. Anakin Masaki did not.

He watched Taylor cry until Jacob straightened him out, not saying a word, his face completely expressionless. Something about the Jedi Code, there is no emotion, there is peace. Or something like that. Outwardly, it made John look like he did not care at all about getting separated from his family, which, in the case of ninety percent of it, was actually true.

And while Jacob was busy imploring Taylor to get it over with, and Taylor finally gave in to the thought of dropping John off, John simply became a little bit proactive and left the room, looking for Keith. Even his discipline *shudder* had to be better than being a Masaki...

Taylor noticed the kid leaving. "Hold up. I'll take you to him. After that, you won't see me again for a good while."

Indifference (http://www.despair.com/indifference.html)

John stood there for a moment; Taylor had given him pause. Not that Taylor had suddenly convinced him that he belonged in the family, of course. Such was nigh impossible, with the other Masakis in the family. Instead, Taylor had merely stopped; John saw no harm in letting Taylor find Keith for him.

The two of them found Keith in the lobby, still dressed in his Class A's. John said absolutely nothing. It mattered not if he stayed with the Masakis or went with Colonel Allaire for a while; either way, he was doomed. John made no effort to say his goodbyes, he did not hug Taylor, nor offer any sort of condolence.

"You are not going to say goodbye to your parent?" Keith asked John, feeling (and somewhat agreeing with) Taylor's mix of indignation and resignation at the whole situation. John merely shrugged in reply, and slowly walked towards Keith, resigning himself to the mess he had gotten himself into. Keith scowled at John's apparent indifference to leaving the one who had adopted him.

At all this, the hospital staff said not a word to interrupt the process. Instead, they talked amongst themselves. Some remarked with oohs and aahs about how cute Johnny was in that parental sort of way, others cried at the sight, and a few more wondered what was happening. One nurse, who was in the lobby, was overcome with emotion, and ran out to avoid making a scene. Such was the emotion. Overall though, the staff mostly left the Masakis and Colonel Allaire to the task at hand, and said not a word directly to either. Family matters weren't out of place at UCLA Medical.

Indifference (http://www.despair.com/indifference.html)

John stood there for a moment; Taylor had given him pause. Not that Taylor had suddenly convinced him that he belonged in the family, of course. Such was nigh impossible, with the other Masakis in the family. Instead, Taylor had merely stopped; John saw no harm in letting Taylor find Keith for him.

The two of them found Keith in the lobby, still dressed in his Class A's. John said absolutely nothing. It mattered not if he stayed with the Masakis or went with Colonel Allaire for a while; either way, he was doomed. John made no effort to say his goodbyes, he did not hug Taylor, nor offer any sort of condolence.

"You are not going to say goodbye to your parent?" Keith asked John, feeling (and somewhat agreeing with) Taylor's mix of indignation and resignation at the whole situation. John merely shrugged in reply, and slowly walked towards Keith, resigning himself to the mess he had gotten himself into. Keith scowled at John's apparent indifference to leaving the one who had adopted him.
Taylor sighed at John's indifference for the last time. "Wish he would at least say goodbye...Train him well, will ya? I don't want him coming back a wimp."

Taylor smiled a bit at that to Keith, then disappeared in a flash of fire, leaving Keith and John to their devices. Soon enough, the Twins will head off into space in search of their old Teacher...

Twelve Hours Later

"Come." Keith scowled at John, who, for reasons unknown, had cloaked on his ride from Los Angeles to Great Woody City. Which meant Keith had just finished dealing with the same frustration that the Masakis had been dealing with since the boy first cloaked (unintentionally) at Konoha. Namely, Colonel Allaire had been searching for the kid for nearly two hours, making him look somewhat like a fool. "I am in no mood to deal with such insolence." He gave John a hard shove, as if using a cattle prod on him.

John gulped. "So what are you going to do with me?" he whispered meekly, not looking forward to whatever pwning was coming.

"You do not really want to know." Colonel Allaire grabbed the kid's wrist so hard that he nearly crushed it, and dragged the poor kid along with him, throwing him into a waiting speeder. Oh, yes. The Colonel was not going to suffer the kid's cloakery again. John sighed, resigning himself to whatever torture-for-discipline Keith had in mind. He knew he had screwed up, he knew he needed to be disciplined for it, suddenly he realized what he had gotten himself into by forsaking the Masakis. At least temporarily, anyway.

About fifteen minutes later, the two of them arrived at a military base, whereupon Keith took John to the base hospital. Neither said a word, leaving John to wonder just what Keith had in mind. Upon entering said hospital, Keith told the receptionist that he was looking for one Major Ehrell.

"One moment please." The receptionist called upstairs to ascertain his status. "He is on lunch break, will return in fifteen minutes."

"Aff. Thank you." Colonel Allaire scowled at John, before grabbing him to find the break room. Sure enough, they found him walking out of it, a bottle of water in his hands the only remaining evidence that he had been on lunch break. "Major Ehrell..." Colonel Allaire's voice echoed off the halls as he sought the combat medic's attention.

"Yes?" came the somewhat surprised reply. John suddenly got a bad feeling about all of this and cloaked, but not before Keith grabbed his arm again.

"I need this one fitted with a tracking device. I am in no mood to deal with this for several months," Keith told the medic coldly.

"Aff," the Major replied. "I can have him fitted within fifteen minutes. I know you grabbed hold of him as he cloaked; keep him pinned down, ok?"

"Indeed," Keith scowled, tightening his grip on John so much that John hurt, and thought Keith might break his arm. John gulped as he awaited his fate.

A few minutes later, the Major returned, leading both customer and patient into a bare-bones hospital room, whereupon the Major made note of where Keith appeared to be holding John. A quick, light (given Ehrell's physical strength) punch to the head, and John was decloaked, all right. And unconscious. Anesthetic would not be necessary.

It took less than a minute for Major Ehrell to implant the tracking chip. Slightly longer to check for any injury from what had passed for "anesthetic." None was apparent; apparently John had substantial regenerative abilities. Indeed, the kid woke up only about five minutes after getting knocked out.

"Hey! What was that for!?" John looked up angrily at Major Ehrell.

"Just making sure that your friend here can find you," the Major replied with a rare smile. "No complications, or so it would appear." He activated the chip, and handed Colonel Allaire a small tracker so he could actually read the data from John's new implanted transponder. "You are free to go," the medic told them, whereupon Keith scowled and yanked John out of the room, off to do some other errand...

"Why the hell did you do that?" John demanded of Keith angrily, when they were off of the military base. Rare was it for John's voice to express such anger, but then again, he was only seven. "Now what the hell am I supposed to do? You may as well have put me in a ysalmari chamber; the Force is useless now!"

"Only when dealing with me, and for the moment." Keith's calm actually surprised John; the kid had half expected Keith to beat him for the outburst or something. Hell, Keith actually smiled at John. "I realize that Taylor might be the only Masaki who has not simply ignored you, and that Anakin needs to get that smirk wiped off his face. But the Masakis want you to learn skills outside of stealth. And how am I supposed to teach you how to fight when I cannot find you?"

The boy had to accept Keith's logic, at least the bit about teaching him how to fight. However, one objection remained. "I am NOT a Masaki! I do not care if I never see them again!" John still wasn't happy, but even he suddenly realized the difference between indifference and disowning his 'family.' "Except for maybe Taylor..."

"You are a Masaki as long as I have anything to say about it. If you think you are ever going to see a courthouse, think again. Now, to get us both into the proper educational arrangements..." Keith dragged John off with him to the University of White Diamond flagship campus.

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Given his earlier education at White Diamond Military Academy, Keith had little trouble getting into the graduation program. Sure, he had to take an entrance exam on a subject that he had not yet had any decent chance to study, but the exam showed he knew everything that could be expected of him from someone who had only ever had basic physical geography classes to him. (The Jedi Order was not well known for training geologists, and the Military Academy only trained them at postgraduate level.) As a Woodian citizen, he did not have to worry about such things as tuition either--taxes paid for that bill, unlike in Coredia. Now, he needed only figure out when the instructors would hold his classes, so he could schedule schooling and activities for John (who remained quiet, as usual, while he observed Keith taking care of his own business).

Keith and John both waited as the Admissions Office processed Keith's entrance exam, for Keith to get into the Masters Degree program for geology. He had, after all, informed the Jedi Order, that he intended to pursue his geokinetic abilities. While Keith would have more flexibility to choose classes in the future, the first semester's schedule was pretty much determined by entrance exam results; one of the downsides (or was it upsides? Keith couldn't decide which) of taxpayer-financed tuition was that taxpayers tended to not want their tax dollars educating people in fields that they would not do their best in. About the only input the Admissions counselor requested was how many hours of credit Keith wanted to take per semester.

"Somewhere between fifteen and eighteen," Keith replied, like it was no big deal. Any more than that, and he would have to deal with requesting overload permissions, which he would have been more than willing to do, if not for having to set aside some time for having to train John as well.

The counselor looked at him like he was crazy. "You do wish to, um, sleep? Most graduate students take twelve at most. They do, um, have lives outside of college, unlike undergrads."

Keith smiled. "Sometimes sacrifices have to be made. Besides, Jedi can compress eight hours' worth of sleep into eight minutes."

"Damn. Wish I could do that," the counselor replied, as she processed the information. She then handed Keith back a list of courses: Physical Geography II, Introduction to Geophysics, Geological Engineering, Structural Geology, and Hydrogeology. "Some of these courses have more than one available section, so you do have some flexibility in your schedule," the counselor told Keith politely, aware that the first semester might seem a bit...cold and impersonal. "At the end of the first semester, the faculty evaluates your work at that point, and it is then that you get paired up with a faculty mentor. After all, they do need to have something to evaluate."

Keith merely nodded as he filled out his schedule. It was evident that he had come to the right place. Hydrogeology? He had to admit, he hadn't quite thought of that. Damn, he might have to stick his fingers in other elemental powers too...apparently geology had a bit more breadth than he realized. Meanwhile, John simply looked bored as hell...Keith quickly returned the form to get his schedule processed.

A short time later, Keith knew around what times he would have to schedule alternate activities for John. Now John would get to be the subject of bureaucracy for once, as Keith enrolled him in the Woodian elementary school system for half a school year, to cover certain subjects that the Academy could not cover by proxy. Keith informed the Woodian administrators of John's "dual education" situation, and had to fill out a few forms indicating that John's future anticipated absences did not indicate truancy. Of course, he also signed away his consent for Woodian educators to contact the Jedi Academy to verify that should John be absent, it was for activities related to his Jedi training. Which meant that John would be in BIG TROUBLE, should he ever get ideas about using his ability of cloak to get out of school. Not that he would EVER do that...

There was one last item. Martial arts instruction for the seven-year-old. Keith could do a pretty good job of that on his own, but there was the one pesky *evening* class on his own schedule that he needed to occupy John for. Oh, yes. Major Ehrell might be free, and he could give John some damn good Teras Kasi instruction in that unused block of time. Keith had to smile at the thought of Anakin receiving a very nasty surprise when John returned.

Therefore, upon returning to the military base, Keith having had to haul John's ass back there, Keith pulled rank to speak with him. "Oh no!" John exclaimed, at recognizing the person who had knocked him out earlier that day.

"You need me to teach a seven-year-old Teräs Käsi?" Major Ehrell's eyebrow raised. It was not every day that he was asked to train kids. Most of the time, he trained recruits. That, or kicked their asses. "You cannot join the military until you are sixteen..."

"I know that." Colonel Allaire wasn't surprised by the Major's reluctance to follow orders. After all, the Woodian method of martial arts instruction was...violent. Ehrell was probably nervous that he would injure the kid or something. "He does exhibit an uncanny ability to regenerate. Besides, you are a medic, remember?"

Major Ehrell shrugged as John gulped. "Please do not let him beat me into a bloody pulp," John whined. He would have cloaked, too, if not for the man who had made such ability useless standing right in front of him. All the more reason for Keith to order said training.

"I will let him beat you into a bloody pulp," Keith replied, glaring at John, "only because you asked me not to. After all, this training is to ensure that you do not return to the Masakis as a wuss." John gulped, resigned to his fate.

Yet when Keith left for his evening class, the one that he had to dump John off with the good Major for, John found that the instruction would take a little while before it got terrifying. Major Ehrell, sensing the kid's fear of him and seeking to ease John into the martial arts, started with the basic stuff that wouldn't hurt anybody, like stances, aggressive ones versus defensive ones. He also demonstrated a few moves, thankfully on a mannequin instead of on John. The fact that the Major beheaded the mannequin in his demonstration of a Charging Wampa (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Charging_Wampa), however, was not all that encouraging to the seven-year-old boy. He shuddered. Meanwhile, the Major sheepishly reattached the mannequin's head to its body.

By the time Keith Allaire picked the kid up again, the kid had a white face of terror. Yet he had yet to even be scratched. Keith scowled. "Kid, I see not a scratch on you, and yet you are afraid of him. Why?"

John gave no reply. Keith scowled as he took John back to the barracks to teach John a few of his own martial arts tricks, that he might have a feeling that he could actually defend himself, rather than cower in fear. Given John's past, of constantly getting beaten by the Woodian military when it was enslaved to the Dark One, Keith supposed he understood. Still, he would have to find ways to excise the fear out of John's system. Training a seven-year-old wasn't like training a sixteen year old recruit, it seemed...