Sith Academy: Hurtin' Songs for the Soul
By Maya, the Mad Mambolica
rushmambo@hotmail.com
[Read Maya's author bio]

Clad only in a tatty pair of happy-face boxers, Darth Maul lay dozing on the couch, the boredom inflicted on him by Day Time television, simply too much for him to bear.

"Ohmigod, you don't really think Rocky could be -"

"Gay? Yes, Kaitlin, he must be, it's the only explanation for his involvement in the biker-bar scandal."

"What will we do? He's the father of Tamara's children!"

"I don't know..." Maul scowled, and mustering the Force he sent the set toppling over backwards with a wave of his hand. Ha, he thought, that's nothing you should try having wild Jedi monkey-love going on at all hours next door to you.

"Well, my apprentice, I see you're busy stimulating your grey matter," said Sidious, his voice dripping with sarcasm. He smiled, ferret-like, at Maul who clearly would never get used to his Master's surprise entrances.

There was a cheery rat-a-tat-tat on the door. Sidious looked at Maul. "Aren't you going to answer that?" he asked. With a heavy sigh, Maul rolled off the couch onto the floor and climbed stiffly to his feet. He cast a withering glance upon his master who had turned his attention to feeding the cat a can of tuna.

"Hi, neighbor!" chirped the peppy Padawan from next door. He stood in the doorway dressed in a pair of jeans, fringed turquoise and white shirt, and white Stetson atop his head. Maul slammed the door shut immediately.

"Maul, you will speak to him. He has a proposition for you. You will accept it." Sidious chided his apprentice. "I have foreseen it."

Maul felt his anger swell. The day for him to strike down his master was approaching - rapidly. Opening the door once more revealed the young Jedi once again. He was still smiling.

"What do you want," growled the Sith. He cringed as Obi-Wan briefly allowed his eyes to travel down Maul's tattooed torso.

"Oh, hehe," started the twit, eyes flicking downward once more, appraising Maul. "I wanted to know if you wanted to come dancing with me tonight, Qui-Gon's pulled a groin muscle."

Flashbacks to his misadventures at the Grey Side leapt into Maul's skull. He shuddered involuntarily as he recalled ending up with the Padawan afterward. It's just sex, he told himself, it doesn't mean anything.

"No, I'm, uh, er-"

"I have foreseen it," came a sinister voice from the kitchen.

Throwing an infuriated glare over his shoulder at his master, who was now stupidly crumpling a piece of paper for the cat to play with, Maul replied, "Sure, I couldn't think of anything else I'd rather do." Thousands of other things played out in the Sith's mind, mostly dealing with some rather graphic imagery surrounding Sidious' ultimate destruction.

"Oh Yippee!" Obi-Wan clapped his hands together in joy. "I'll come back in a moment, so you can change." He giggled. Damn those wandering eyes, thought Maul as he allowed the door to shut. The Sith wheeled on his master.

"I will NOT go with him! You know what always happens when I go to clubs."

"It is a lesson in fostering your anger, Maul, trust me." Sidious smirked and then turned his attention back to the feline presence who had worked her way onto his lap and now demanded attention.

Maul yanked on a pair of grungy jeans and his "Sith Lords Kick Ass" tee-shirt. He reached for his robes, which lay in a pile on the floor but was stopped by the invisible barrier of the Force. Sidious was holding out a pair of black chaps.

"I was saving these for a rainy day, but I think they'll be more appropriate now. Really they shouldn't be worn over jeans, bare legs and a cod-piece is more traditional, but never mind. Put them on, my apprentice."

As Maul squeezed into the chaps he said, "I think, Master, that you WANT me to end up with the Jedi." He tried not to think of what Sidious' smile could possibly mean.

"Yes, Maul, feel your anger. Caress it. Use it to strike out at me."

Maul grabbed his lightsaber and ignited both ends meaning to smite his sadistic, and ever creepy, master. The leather of his chaps pulled and creaked, and Maul stopped his forward advance abruptly as his legs froze.

Laughing, Sidious said, "Ah, yes, those chaps do need a good breaking in. Perhaps, if all goes well tonight, you and the Padawan will see to it."

Just then there came the entirely too peppy knock at the door.

"Hi neighbor! Oooooooh, you look nice."

***

Obi-Wan and Maul passed the Grey Side in their cab.

"Where are we going?" demanded the Sith.

"To The Corral."

It clicked in then, Maul realized he was being taken line-dancing. Line-dancing!!! Oh, the humiliation! No Sith had to submit to the idiocy of being forced to stand in a row of people all wearing stupid hats and bright, heavily starched clothing! Line-dancing was all about order, doing the same thing at the same time as everyone else. Sith were lords of Chaos, causing disruptions and reeking havoc on the sheep-like masses!

Was the cab-driver laughing? Inside his head, Maul felt the evil cold of his Master's presence telling him to hone his anger, savor it, and no, you aren't going to get out of this one.

***

"...Don't tell my heart, my ugly Uggnaut's heart, I just don't think he'd understand..." The music thumped and whined as Maul and the Jedi entered the club. Everywhere there was a plethora of cowboy hats, and over the din came the sound of many booted feet hitting the floor in unison.

"Gee, do you want a drink?" asked Obi-Wan.

"I don't want one, I need one." The Sith spat in disgust as he surveyed the scene. At least the chaps had loosened up a bit.

Obi-Wan trotted off and quickly returned from the bar with two Pink Ladies. Maul downed it in one gulp and then grabbed a Molson Alderaanian Dry from the tray of a passing waitress. She turned and yelled at him. "You gonna pay for that?!"

"I don't need to pay for it." He waved his hand.

"You don't need to pay for it."

"Sorry to bother me." He wiggled his fingers.

"Sorry to bother you."

"I am the perfect specimen of manhood and you would like nothing better than to sleep with me." He leered as he gestured once more.

"Wow, I'm not usually this forward, but I gotta say, you're the perfect specimen of manhood. I don't suppose you're busy later. I would like nothing better than to sleep with you."

"Well, since you put it that way, how can I refuse. I'll be waiting for you when you get off work." Maul felt his confidence restored knowing that he wouldn't have to end up with Obi-Wan afterward. He chuckled as the waitress blushed and trotted off with her drinks.

"Let's go dance!" shouted the young Jedi. He grabbed the gloating Sith's hand and dragged him onto the dance floor. There were multi-colored lights blinking on and off from the ceiling and at least a hundred beings all clapping and skipping around in time to the music of Girth Nooks.

"But I don't know the dance!" Maul protested as they landed amongst the throngs of happy cowpokes.

"You'll catch on. Just do what I do!"

Obi-Wan proceeded to leap into a confusing series of shuffles, skips, hops, stamps and hip wiggles. It was a blur of bafflement to the Sith. Everyone else seemed to get it. Surely the quick mind and agile body of a Sith could perform these simple basic moves.

Maul hopped forward on his right foot. Everyone else skipped sideways on their left. Maul double-stepped forward. Everybody spun to the right and clapped. Maul stamped his left foot back. The Wookiee behind him howled as his foot was smushed by Maul's. Maul ducked as the Wookiee flailed. Obi-Wan cried out as the hairy creature's fist planted in his shoulder.

The song wound down. Maul was enraged. "I cannot do this!"

"Sure you can, it's easy!" replied Obi-Wan supportively. "The next one is simple. I'll tell you how it goes." The Jedi launched into the next dance as the Shania Twins started into a catchy duet.

"Left, right," he said as he began, swiveling his hips alarmingly, "this one always goes left and then right. Not confusing at all." He smiled, counted down before beginning the dance. Maul watched in building horror. "Heel, heel, toe, toe." Okay, that looked easy enough. "Double step left, double step right." Maul watched as the Jedi shuffled forward finishing the move with a punctuating hip thrust. Damn those hips. "Grapevine, turn, clap!" shouted Obi-Wan as he completed a complex sidestep, turned and clapped. "See, it's easy. Now try with me."

Maul looked around. Everyone the picture of unison and order, it was appalling. Maul bared his teeth in defiance.

"Look, it's so easy. You can do it!"

Maul glowered, suppressing his rage, and submitted to the beat of the music. He tried to mimic the Jedi's moves as he called them out.

"Heel, heel. Toe, toe. Double step, double step." Maul lost his rhythm as he was yet again transfixed by the Padawan's thrusting pelvis. "Grapevine, turn, and clap!" Not realizing that the Sith had lost his beat, Obi-Wan turned and smacked right into Maul.

That was it, Maul lost his temper. He couldn't control his fury any longer. "What the Hell is a GRAPEVINE?!" He shoved the Jedi away from him and activated his lightstaff. He swung it viciously as he lost control. He lopped off the head of the Wookiee, and reversing the swing, he cut a Jawa's enormous Stetson in two. "GRAPEVINE THIS!! Feel the Dark Side as it CRUSHES you puny lifeforms!"

It was easy to reek vengeance upon the dancing denizens, as they stomped and shimmied up and down in their stupid little lines, oblivious to the bloody carnage occurring around them. He spun his weapon, its red blades a blur of motion as they cut down cowpoke after cowpoke. A particularly happy cowgirl shook her tightly jeaned bottom in time to the twanging guitar riffs. She had her starched shirt tied at her waist exposing her soft pale belly. Maul used it as a target for a well placed foot. She spiraled out of line connecting with a mean looking one-eyed bat-creature. They both fell over into another column of dancers who proceeded to march and shuffle over top of them.

Obi-Wan ducked the whirling lightsaber and hopped backward. He tripped on the decapitated Wookiee head which was still rocking gently in the place it had landed. The young Jedi twisted his ankle as he toppled over backward. As he watched Maul deek an angry patron's punch and come back with a vicious upper-cut to the chin, Obi-Wan began to think that bringing his rather highly strung neighbor had been a bad idea. Image isn't everything, the Padawan thought to himself. He crawled toward the bar, whimpering as a severed foot leg landed with a thud next to him.

The Sith hopped left avoiding a falling dancer, skewering a hapless soul, and then to the right as he blasted an Uggnaut off his feet with the Force. He skipped forward out of the reach of someone's meaty hands, impaling a pathetic excuse for a cowgirl, and then forward again taking a swipe at a pizza-faced youth, likely the girl's date. Leaping sideways to the right in order to avoid a mangled mass of limbs, his feet crossing over gracefully, Maul jammed his weapon into a cluster of drunken fraternity boys, forcefully sending them reeling, before spinning to the right and facing off in a new direction. It worked so well with the thump and twang of the country rhythms... He repeated it, paying more careful attention to his movements, and realized that he'd mastered the dance Obi-Wan had tried to teach him. Maul laughed maniacally. He'd figured it out! All it had needed was a bit of pandemonium to provide obstacles for his feet.

His anger spent, Maul stalked over to the bar. He was pleased to see that the mayhem he'd caused had ignited the remaining characters out on the dance floor to utter chaos. A fine lot of brawlers they were, and likely several of them might have good potential as apprentices if he could ever get them out of their pastel printed shirts. He caught site of the waitress and changed his course. She was talking to some burly cowboy type. Maul was damned if he was going home with Obi-Wan again.

He swung her around by the arm and said, "You get off work now. Let's go."

"I'm off work now, we can go." She smiled vacantly.

"Hey, where do you think you're going with my girlfriend!?" The burly cowboy stood up. He was enormous. Maul was still feeling his rage, however, and spat at him, baring his teeth.

"Oh no you don't, she's MINE!" A large beefy arm came very close to striking Maul in the face, so close that it was almost worry-some; he'd very nearly missed blocking it with the Force. The missed mark only angered the infuriated boyfriend further and he tried again.

"Hey, guys, stop fighting, I'm sure you can work it oooooOOOOOUUUT!" Obi-Wan yelled as he came limping out of the panicked mass of people. He jumped in between them as he tried to break up the fight but was thwarted by Maul's booted foot landing in his chest.

"No, guys, really stop it! Violence isn't the answer!" The Jedi pleaded as he climbed to his feet. He swatted and slapped at the cowboy's arm succeeding only in irritating the gigantic man. Obi-Wan clung desperately to the man as he tried to shove the little twit out of his way. As Maul easily darted the swing aimed at his chin, he looked over at the pathetic peace-loving idiot and he suddenly had an idea.

He waved his hand in front of the cowboy. "It was all his idea." He pointed to Obi-Wan who was now clinging to the hefty boyfriend's arm, swinging wildly two feet above the ground.

"YOU?!" Suddenly Obi-Wan was flying through the air, propelled away from the shaking fist.

"NoooooooooOOOOOOOOOOOOOOoooooooooo!"

Obi-Wan dashed between a series of small tables, the irate cowboy steps behind. Maul resisted the urge to cackle as the giant man took off after the fleeing Jedi. Using his quick reflexes, the Padawan knocked each chair over as he ran through them, effectively barring the way for his pursuer. Maul took a moment to be impressed before turning his attention to the dumbfounded waitress.

Maul seized the waitress' arm once more. He smiled. "Your place or mine?" With a giggle and a flip of her ponytail, the two left the Corral and hailed a taxi. Everything had worked out for a change, and Maul breathed a sigh of relief as their cab pulled away from the curb. He threw his arm around the waitress' shoulders and proceeded to nibble her ear. Oh this was gonna be sweet.

She turned her large brown doe-eyes on him and giggled. Maul chuckled as he proceeded to munch down her neck.

The waitress stopped him, turning to face the Sith and putting a finger to his lips. She leaned in very close and turned her mouth to his ear. "Have you ever seen The Crying Game?"

***

As Obi-Wan was thrown from The Corral by the bouncer, he swore he could hear someone screaming...

***

"NOOOOOOOOOOOooooooooooooOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"

END

(6/22/99)

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