2007-09-23: I Wanna Be Darth Maul

Starring:

Monica_icon.gif Ian_icon.gif Randall_icon.gif

Summary: Monica reveals her ability to Ian in a way that he can appreciate. Monica wants to be Darth Maul, and Randall reveals his secret love of Gungans.

Date It Happened: 9/23/07

I Wanna Be Darth Maul


Greenwich Village, NYC - New York University

So here's what happened. The plans for Monica's got-into-party have been temporarily delayed, but that didn't stop Monica from calling Ian up on the day previous to the present. After telling him she wanted to show him something, she'd asked the oddest questions: what was his favorite light saber duel in the movies? And could he actually perform any of the duels (or sections thereof) from amongst his favorites? Hopefully having secured those answers, she asked to meet him on the green today and advised him to bring his play sabers.

The answer is certain passages from Phantom Menace - the fight between Maul and Qui-Gonn, mostly. And he's used to performing them, usually in Maul's role. He's on hand in t-shirt and fatigues, with both blue saber and scarlet saber staff in hand. It's late afternoon and the shadows are lengthening, as he lounges on a bench by the fountain in the park.

Monica strolls up, dressed in sweats and looking like she's ready to actually do something athletic. "Hey, Ian." she greets with a smile. "Glad you were willing to do this, but…I think you kind of would want to see." Absently she does a stretch, dropping her hands down to the ground in front of her and lifting her head to look at him. "So I was thinking, you want to do the Qui-Gon/Maul duel?" Just like that? Wait, huh, what?

Ian grins at her, brilliantly. "I'm so glad to hear you got in," he says, with real sincerity. And then he cants his head at her. "What, you been watching Phantom Menace?" he wonders, bouncing a little on his toes.

Monica grins. "Well, parts." She looks positively enigmatic. "Who do you want to be? Qui-Gon or Darth Maul?"

Ian whirls the unlit saber staff around him, ending with a flourish. "Maul, I'm thinking," he says, making a little beckoning gesture with his free hand.

"Alrighty." She picks up the blue saber and unable to resist, lights it up. VWOOM! She assumes Qui-Gon's ready stance - Qui-Gon's exact ready stance, in point of fact. "So. How fast can you do it?"

Ian flicks both ends of the scarlet saber-staff on, and settles into ready. "I can do it at film speeds. Obviously, we can't do the chasm jumps, considering. The blade choreography I know by heart. Why? 've you been practicing?" he wonders. Ian's not in costume, but he's got a prop in hand - the double ended lightsaber from the first of the Star Wars prequels.

"I only watched it last night." she says. "And I had no way of knowing what you'd pick out of six movies. Dontcha think?" Monica then grins again, lifting her hand in the come-hither gesture this time. "So, knowing that…you ready?"

Ian blinks at Monica, a little perplexed. "You got an eidetic memory, or something?" he ventures. "I'm ready, if you are."
"Eidetic memory is for facts and stuff. You can't memorize physical actions, much less perform them that way, Ian." She adds, "Maul attacks first." With that, she's ready to swing into it, and even if he goes slow, well - barring his attacks on an unseen Obi-Wan, she performs the first two lower blocks of the fight and moves into the next…with uncanny cinematic smoothness.

He's practiced, as well, and the plaza echoes with the hum and zap of lightsaber combat. The first few passages go flawlessly, until he calls a stop by lifting his hand.

Some of the bystanders, having realized what these two are up to, are starting to watch more closely now. Among them, Randall and a few others are kicking a maroon kickball around, except for one who wanders off toward a nearby tree. What've they got in mind here?

Monica halts, and makes a little face. "Aww." she says. "We were just getting to the good part. That little twirly thing Qui-Gon does. Would you rather I be Maul?" she asks, looking oddly eager. Waitaminute…she can do both parts?

Ian shakes his head. His eyes are gleaming with curiosity, but his lips have thinned out, leaving him curiously expressionless. "No. Let's start again from the top, shall we?" And again, he settles into the ready position.

Meanwhile… uh oh, someone remembered what the Gungans were up to at roughly this same point in the movie. They're trying to use felled branches and rocks as a makeshift catapult, sending the kickball higher into the air. So far, it isn't working.

Especially since the Gungan part happens elsewhere! They all lose Geek Points. "Okay." Monica says patiently, adding, "Maul's part is fun-er, though." And she begins again, with the same smooth exactitude of Liam Neeson - and his stunt double.

It starts slow, and moves up to film speeds with in a moment or two. "Impressive. Most impressive," Ian deadpans, before breaking into one of those idiotic grins. The kickballers get a glance, now and then…..to the point that he, distracted, takes a good crack on the neck from the blue blade.

That's their opening! Randall lobs one of the balls into the air with a volleyball serve, which goes sailing overhead and lands somewhere on the other side of the saber combatants. The others follow suit with a combination of ground and air attacks, though they similarly go wide or long or both.

Monica automatically slights into a defense maneuver of Ataru, Qui-Gon's preferred form as evident in the duel itself. "That was sneaky!" she protests…but still executed it perfectly.

Ian lifts a hand for a pause, before putting it to his neck. Someone's gonna have a hella of a bruise there. He glances off to see what the kickballers are up to. "I think folks are rendering their opinion," he notes, drily.

They totally are. "Alla youse people gonna die!" one of them calls out, though this is evidently deemed a little /too/ hotheaded by the others; one of his buddies takes the opportunity to smack him in the back with a casual short toss.

Monica turns and takes a hipshot stance as she watches the tossers, both in figurative and literal sense. "Yeah, because the floppy eared duck billed people are so cool, acting like them is just the fast track to impressive." Except the exact opposite, from her amused tone. She too lets her lightsaber lean against the side of her neck.

Ian lazily bats one of the incoming balls aside with a saber, having detached the two halves from each other so that now he has two singles, rather than one double-ended. "Yeah, well."

"Hey, most of them /were/ pretty cool, I mean they threw Jar Jar the hell out, right?" Congratulations, Monica, you've offended the other Star Wars geeks. Randall, meanwhile, produces a length of spare tether and casually swings it around at knee level. Now if only Gene were here to provide some AT-ATs for them to fell…

"Uh huh." Monica just shakes her head and chuckles, before looking back at Ian. "So I don't get to do Darth Maul's part, then?"

Ian blinks, jerked back for the moment. ""Sure, sure, you can," he says, a touch embarassed, already rejoining the red pair and handing the staff off to her.

Randall has left.

"A little," Ian confesses, swinging the blue blade in an easy figure eight.

Monica begins the Darth Maul part of the thing. And here's where it gets really creepy. She does all of Darth Maul's bits…up to and including that one jump where he sort of spins in the air and lands all catlike and cool looking. Apparently Monica's a gymnast.

"How in god's name did you learn to do that?" Ian demands, tone utterly bemused. He's actually nowhere near as graceful as usual, out of sheer startlement.

Monica takes a quick look around, and then steps closer. "By watching The Phantom Menace." she says with a quiet air of shared conspiracy. "If I see something, something physical? I can do it. If someone's doing it in front of me or by watching it on a screen, doesn't matter. You see what I'm saying?"

Ian's eyes round in surprise and delight. "You have a stupid pet trick, too!" he says, sweeping her into a hug.

Monica lets out a surprised squeak. "Um…yeah? I guess so!" She grins ruefully. "You're kind of the first person who isn't like…family, that I've told." Except for Peter, but he knew about everyone else.

He smells of some perfume oil, some resinous scent. She gets a jubilant squeeze, as if she'd just announced something worthy of congratulations. "I do, too!" he says, dropping his voice into a conspirator's whisper.

Monica wriggles her nose a little at the scent, but then blinks. "You do? Really? What can you do?" she asks eagerly in a low voice. "C'mon, I showed you mine."

Ian keeps an arm around her, though it turns into sort of a shoulder drape - the lightsaber is gently set down, for a moment. He cups his other hand between them, so no one else can see what he might have in his hand. Which is, at first, nothing. But after a moment or two, the tips of his fingers start to spark, the muscles twitching involuntarily. And in a heartbeat or two more, his whole hand is filled with lightning - like a mad scientist's Jacob's ladder.

Monica's mouth pops open. "Oh my god!" She then looks envious. "That's way cooler then what I got." Well, what she got was pretty darn awesome. "So you're like the Emperor, huh? You gonna go all wrinkly and yellow eyed?"

His hand is spasming. Not something he should maintain for long, clearly. He shuts it down. "Happily, no. Not so much with the evil. And there you have it," he says, beaming.

Monica grins and steps back from him. "And you know more people who can stuff. Do they go here? Can I meet them?" she asks eagerly.

And then Ian's all owlish and quiet. "I know some. I….it's not up to me. May I let those I trust know what -you- can do?" he says, more gently.

Monica considers a few moments, casually twirling the lightsaber. Then she nods. "That's fair. As long as you trust 'em."

Ian inclines his head, before dipping down to pick up the lightsaber.

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