The One with the Sith Academy
By r'Hul
rhul@siubhan.com

I pretty much borrow from every studio in this one... But HA! This is parody! The Bill Of Rights guarantees that I can do this. So nanny nanny, you can't sue me.

I dedicate this to those who make this look easy... I bow before greatness ladies. I'll be taking my warped twisted little mind back to sketch writing, thank you very much.

And mucho thanks to Siubhan for making me redo this again and again and her invaluable help as a primary source.

Maul's PlayStation was a smoking molten mess on the carpet. And for once Maul was the instigator of the devastation. "How DARE they put Darth Lara Croft in a parka and mukluks!" Obi -he's not my boyfriend- Wan was off with the Hippie on some mission. Sidious was on Naboo helping Darth Mary Sue do some in-depth research on Nabooan politics... something about how to create a puppet government by getting out the youth vote. He was all alone, and frustrated, again.

Even the boob tube was no solace. After only an hour of watching daytime TV, he realized he wasn't honing his anger--he was honing his boredom. Even the thought of trying to poach a whole salmon, or organize all his photos into acid free books for only 2995 credits, wasn't tempting.

"Meow."

Maul's eyes drifted over to the corner of the room. His computer. He hadn't looked at his 'puter in ages. He went over and blew the cobwebs off the keyboard. What the hell, he thought. I might as well. Heard you can get nearly anything at the PalpaTrade site.

"What do you mean my name's already been taken!" He tried 'Maul' 'DarthMaul' 'LordMaul' but they were all taken as ID names. Even all the cool numbers were gone. Well unless he wanted to be Maul31... And what kind of stupid number is 31?

My Apprentice rubbed up against his leg, You could always try o-b-i-l-u-v-r.

Maul had typed it in and hit enter before he realized what he actually had typed. But it was too late. "Why you matted hairball! Just see if I ever bring lox into this household again! I AM NOT AN OBI LOVER!"

De-nial is not just a salty river on Naboo... She barely ducked the CD case Maul chucked at her head.

He turned back to the keyboard and muttered, "I am NOT an Obi lover... Obi fucker sure..."

Okay, now what do I want to search for... He looked down at the fabric fragments across his chest that used to be a 'Sith Lords Kick Ass' t-shirt, "Well guess I could expand my wardrobe a bit. Hey how about a Siouxsie and the Banshees t-shirt." He punched in his request. "What the hell do you mean 'Sorry, we couldn't find any items'? Oh. Shit. Forgot that damn second 's'. "What the fuck is a babydoll shirt?" *click* "Ah a tiny tit tee."

While Maul was preoccupied trying to figure out the graphic from one of Siouxsie's tour shirts What the fuck is that?, My Apprentice stealthily crept up beside him. One head butt, 5 hours, and 3 bidding wars later he was the proud owner of the very collectable, very rare, Ultra Deluxe Vibrating Hamster toy... for only 1 million 4 hundred and one (You must do the one to get your bid over everybody else.) credits. He punched in the numbers from Mace's credit card into BuyBuddy. My Apprentice gave a little sneeze and sauntered off to the bathroom. Her work was done, for now, but she would be back.

He was still waiting on an auction for the Alderaanian Ultra Deluxe Vibrating Hamster (It had different packaging than the Coruscant UDVH.), that ended in 5 days 7 hours and 31 minutes. So he decided to visit some of his old bookmarks. See what was up at the FoF (Friends of Friends) site.

'Cast Photos. Cast Biographies. Friends Links' Sheesh, could they be even less creative with their page titles? 'Archive of Fiction' Hmmm wonder what they've got here... *click* 'Must be 18 to enter.' All right! Now we're getting somewhere. *click* 'Help Me Obi-Ross'... What the fuck?

It was a few hours before Maul gave up trying to find a decent story. Hell, even a readable story. Do these people know anything about comic timing? Most were pathetic attempts by the writer to insert themselves into the show. If he had to read one more story where a hither there to unknown female comforted Ross, he was gonna puke. Now the concept of the girls entertaining just one guy was intriguing, but they all seemed to be written by boys who'd never seen a naked female live, let alone had sex with one. "You dumbfuck, you do not stick your dick up her 'peehole!'"

The Joey and Chandler stories were laughable. "What is it with everybody having scented massage oil next to their beds? Don't they know that stuff stings worse than Wookieemint? Hello ladies! It's nearly physically impossible to do that position and still be face to face. And I can tell you now Chandler is not limber enough to do it. Well, at least not with a spatula."

My Apprentice tried to ignore the one sided conversation Maul was having with his computer by grooming.

"This is complete and utter shit! I could write better than this!"

My Apprentice pulled her nose from her butt, Well why don't you?

"Do what?"

Write your own fanfic. She went back to licking.

"But of course. I WILL write the ultimate 'Friends' story. It'll put all this crap to shame. My nom de plume shall be celebrated to the far corners of the galaxy. Nebula F's writings shall pale in comparison. Hey wait, that bitch still owes me money... But that's beside the point, I will be a net GOD!"

Two hours later, the screen was still blank.

Three hours after that--well the screen wasn't blank anymore. "The gang sat around Monica's kitchen table." That was it, one sentence.

"I am a Sith LORD! This should come easily to me! Plot lines should pop into my head! Witty dialog should pour from my fingertips!" Bits of frothy spittle were sprayed at the monitor. "This is not acceptable!" The air crackled with his anger.

My Apprentice stuck a paw out from underneath the couch, from where she had been hiding.

"I shall move them to Central Perk! I shall write a second season story! The season where the angst was so thick you could taste it." He cackled gleefully to himself.

Four hours later he had what some would call a vignette. "Two fucking pages!?!?! I've been here how fucking long and it's only two fucking pages?!?!" He went back and reread. "Well that was the idea I had. Got Rachel in a dish-breaking snit fit watching Ross make out on the sofa. I covered everything I wanted to say. How the hell am I supposed to pad this damn thing? That's it. I fucking give up. I'm going to bed."

He tossed. He turned. But sleep eluded him. When he closed his eyes the cast scampered in the fountain in front of him. "Leave me BE! Wait. That's it! Joey's trying to memorize lines and he can not find any peace. THAT'S IT!" He bounded out of bed and ran back to the computer. Throwing Joey into paroxysms of frustration stimulated Maul's artistic sense.

At 4:27 AM he was done. "Beta? Ha! Sith do not require Beta'ing."

He sent it off to alt.creative.tv.friends. And waited for the accolades to roll in.

And waited.

And waited.

*ding* "1 new message." Maul raced to his inbox. "You 2 Can M8k $$$$."

"AAAAARRRRGH!" Maul called his saber to his hand and was all prepared to turn his monitor into confetti, when My Apprentice walked across his keyboard. Her steps called up his posting of the story. He paused and read. But what he saw on the screen bore no resemblance to the story he thought he had written. "What happened to the formatting?"

You idiot, Cornet is text only. You cut and pasted from MicroSith Word. But formatting is the least of its problems. Have you ever listened to any of you own English lectures?

"The grammar in it is perfect! There isn't one misplaced punctuation mark in the whole thing."

And it reads like one of Valorum's speeches. Snoozeville.

"That's IT! I'm going back to hacking!"

***

Qui-Gon raced home. It had been another mind numbing, pointless excursion to mediate a trade dispute on some unpronounceable named planet. But the trip home had been productive. You see, for years he'd been trying to write the "Great Coruscantian" novel. He had dreams of being O'rah's book of the month, but to no avail. When it seemed that he would never get anywhere, the jump to lightspeed had inspired him. He had filled the memory banks of his Appendage Admiral (tm) with his magnum opus. A riveting tale of 6 ageless ones, their lives, their loves, their challenges. How they were there for each other too... The muses had been good to him. It had just flowed from his stylus, onto the pad, in an unconscious stream of thought. He couldn't recreate it if he wanted to. So he desperately wanted to get it on to his computer and saved to disk...

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!"

***

It pleased Maul to find out that the program he'd written to intercept email also worked on snagging downloads. So lets see what the Hippie's been up too... "I'll Be There."

It took 3 cold showers and 2 boxes of tissues for Maul to resume some semblance of control. *sniff* "Who knew he could write?" *sniff* "And the sex. Oh my god the sex. You think he would have been too stoned to remember anything. The scene where the brother and sister teamed up to get the sarcastic one..." Wait a second...

With just a little tweaking, (After all who would believe Phoebe with a sword?) Maul had the ultimate Friends-Highlander crossover. "The One With the Big Pointy Thing."

Unbeknownst to the rest of the gang, Phoebe was a member of the Watchers. Being the person that she is, she thought the perfect place to keep tabs on the "Long Islanders" (Ross and Monica... Gellar of the Clan Gellar) would be to live amongst them. Hilarity, depravity and carnage ensue when Rachel brings Methos home (they met at Bloomingdales, which after all is sacred ground to Rachel) and he takes a shine to Joey too. ("How you doin'?")

As Maul was going through a final spell check he got CUM'ed.

DarthaWhelp: Hey Maul, is my Bro there?
HotShit69: Hey Mary Sue. No and what makes you think he would be?
DarthaWhelp: Well I heard he was back, he's not answering his phone and the last time your line was busy this long it was because you two had...
HotShit69: Okay I get your point. And no he hasn't stopped by yet.
DarthaWhelp: Hmmm. That's strange. Oh wait a second, maybe it has to do with that message on my machine.
HotShit69: What message?
DarthaWhelp: I think it was Qui-Gon sobbing something about something being lost and gone forever.
HotShit69: What did he do? Forget where he'd left his stash? Would serve the asshole right.
DarthaWhelp: Nice to see your care Maul. ;-) Obi's probably over at his place trying to talk him down.
HotShit69: Whatever. Oh hey MS, you watch Highlander, right?
DarthaWhelp: Watched. Past tense. Haven't watched one since they didn't hire Claudia for the spinoff. Dickheaded idiots. Show would've lasted with her.
HotShit69: Well I've written something and I was wondering if you'd read it.
DarthaWhelp: Maul? You want me to be your editor? I'm touched.
HotShit69: You don't have to be sarcastic about it.
DarthaWhelp: No I really mean it. Send it over. I'd love to check it out.

Maul was on pins and needles waiting to hear back from Mary Sue. *ding*

DarthaWhelp:So Maul, you wrote this hunh?
HotShit69: Well I might of borrowed a few plot Ewoks that were scampering around on the FoF list.
DarthaWhelp: Plot Ewoks, right. Anyway the first thing I'd suggest is going back through and stripping out all the dialogue that sounds like Qui-Gon talking.
HotShit69: Oh.
DarthaWhelp: Right *oh*. But actually considering I know Qui-Gon doesn't watch TV and thus wouldn't know Chandler from Joey from Ross, I'd say you're gonna have a damn fine crossover here. Tell you what. I've got a friend that hosts a Highlander fic list. Once you get it done, I'll submit to her and see if we can get it posted.
HotShit69: Thanks MS. I couldn't interest you in sexual favors as a means of repayment, could I?
DarthaWhelp: What? No more *wannafuck* Maul? Writing has made you eloquent.
HotShit69: Oh ha ha very funny.
DarthaWhelp: You owe me big on this Maul. And I'm not gonna let you forget it.

Mary Sue was good to her word. Within a week the story was posted to the Lowlanders ("For immortal fans who just can't get out of the gutter") web site. The web mistress actually flagged it as her pick of the week. "Keep a towel handy for this one. Both to sit on and wipe sprayed beverages off your screen." Maul was in hog heaven. And then the feedback started rolling in.

First came the nitpickers. "Monica doesn't have that kind of upper body strength to handle that type of sword." For them Maul devised a special virus program that would deliver each of their incoming messages 10 times. The Lowlanders list normally averaged 150 posts a day. Even Sidious, still back on Naboo, could feel the howls of outrage and frustration.

Next came the flamers. "Yea gods, these people are more stupid than Jon-Tra. Wait a second... this one is from Jon-Tra!" "DEER SIK PEEVERTID RITER HOW DARE YOU RITE THAT METHOS HAVE SEX WITH RACHEL HIZ HART IZ ONLY FOR DUNCAN" There had to be a special circle of hell for them. It took Maul a while to figure out what. He signed them up to a few lists where they would get messages but not be able send anything. Let's see. First the Tinky-Winky Fanclub. Then how about the Mensa IQ comparison group. Oh and I mustn't forget the Paris-Luvs-Torres group. The saccharin there would put anybody into sugar shock.

The worst of all was the 10-page love letter from Yoda telling him how much he adored the story. Who knew you could write a paragraph about how Gunther pours a cappuccino? He left that one alone. But it required a whole batch of Hamster Death Gulps, made with Extra-Strength Pepto, and a few hours on the can, to flush his system.

But one of the emails puzzled Maul. He called his fandom information source. "Mary Sue, what is a 'zine'?"

"Well back at the dawn of time, when primitive fandom first crawled into hotel ballrooms, people had only paper to put their stories on."

"Are you gonna get to the point any time this millennium?"

"Oh okay. Simply put, they are fan written magazines. The majority have smutty stories in them. And then many of those are same sex pairings. AKA slash stories."

Maul perked up. "Slash? I'm more partial to impaling, but slashing is an option."

"Not that kind of slash. When a writer wants to tell folks who's doing whom they'd put a slash mark between the names. So, for instance you guys would be Obi-slash-Maul."

Unfortunately the receptionist to the gods just happened to wake up from a nap at that moment and jotted down an appointment...

Maul snorted and continued his line of questioning. "So where do you get these 'zines?"

"Conventions mostly. Hey you know Maul, you should go to one someday. I hear they're trying to get a Jedi Tomb Raider con going. You could probably drop a couple hundred on Darth Laura 'zines alone."

"But in today's age, why would anybody pay for stories they could download?"

"Damned if I know, but they do. By the way, why do you ask?"

"Well somebody sent me some artwork and said I could use it for a 'zine cover."

"Really? What is it of? Methos and Joey in a romantic clutch? Heh heh."

"No way in hell would that image be allowed anywhere near anything of mine. It's of Central Perk post Quickening. With a huge sword cleaving the sofa."

"Cool, I like it. *click* Oh hey there's somebody on the other line. Hold on... Hey Maul it's Obi, sounds like he needs my help. Talk to ya later, okay?"

"Eh. Oh and you tell that ingrate that if he's too busy to call me, I'm not going to talk to him either."

*chuckle* "Maul, you know, sometimes you're just so cute. Bye."

"SITH DO NOT DO CUTE!" But the line was dead by then.

The next evening Maul was out on his balcony, watching one of the flaming sunsets you can only get from high pollution atmospheres. He heard the door next door slide open, but he continued to stiffly stare straight ahead.

"Hey Maul."

"Hmmmph."

"Listen, I'm sorry I didn't call you when I got back. But I knew if I didn't get right over to Qui-Gon's he was gonna come here. And I figured you'd prefer to have him, bawling at the top of his lungs next door to Da rather than you."

Maul's shoulders relaxed a little. Too bad Sidious wasn't there to enjoy it. A little devious smile crossed his face.

Obi-Wan collapsed against his railing. "God I'm beat. And for all that crap I went through, I still don't know what set him off. Right now all I want is a shower and sleep." He glanced over. "Glad you find my discomfort amusing."

All he got was a noncommittal shrug.

"Oh by the way, some of your mail was in with mine." He went back inside to get the pack and was rifling trough the letters when he stopped on one. "Hey, what are you doing getting a letter from Hippocampus Publishing?" Maul vaulted over the railing to snatch the envelope out of his hands. "Aren't they the folks that do all those slash 'zines? Why would they write you?"

Maul ripped open the missive and hungrily devoured the text. "Ha!" He grinned wickedly. "I'll have you know they're begging me to publish my story."

"Wah?"

"Oh close your mouth before something flies in. Yes I wrote a story that contained slash in it. And if you stop staring at me like that I might just let you help me with some resear..."

My Apprentice had just sauntered out on to the balcony in time to catch their hasty retreat. Oh great. The Alderaanian Hamster goes to the block in 20 minutes... and who's gonna get my dinner... Hey they left the door open... you know, I just happen to have a hankering for a little real Mesocricetus auratus tonight...

With just a little butt wiggle and a graceful leap she disappeared from view into the Jedi's abode...

"Squeeeeal!"

"Merowwwww!" *thud* Damn.

Obi lifted his head, "Did you just hear something?"

"No. Shut up and hand me the spatula. I wanna test a theory..."

END

Author's notes:
1) Every episode of "Friends" is entitled "The One With..."
2) Hippocampus is a mythological species of "sea horses" with the front part horse and back half fish. And like Pegasus, the word is both a species and an individual's name. (Hippocampus was Poseidon's steed.)

(8/21/00)

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