The Lesson

When Jacen's lesson finally breaks Ben, he finds that he can't fully put his apprentice back together.

All disclaimers apply; I own nothing.

His breath came and went in sickly, gasping, hungry gulps. His right hand clutched at his chest, pleading with his heart to slow its beating as his left arm supported him off the muddy ground. Eyes were shut as tight as they could be and then some—the rest of his face was contorted with pain and anguish with not even a trace of an attempt to hide it. His body's muscles were tightening and knotting themselves into painful spasms as his entire being shook with convulsions. Ear-piercing cries broke though his bitten, bloodied lips as the waves of pain came and went, each one a little bit more powerful than its preceder, building to a crescendo. But, by far, the part that he wished would cease most was the pain in his head; an invisible force was pushing on the inside out, increasing with every passing second, blocking his ability to think past his pain and blinding him from using the Force.

The green lightening finally ceased and everything was silent.

Ben Skywalker felt his body cripple as his left arm—the only support he had—buckled at the elbow and sunk his body lower into the ground. With what little energy he had left he raised his head towards the man two feet away from him, opening his eyes—his clouded, pain-filled, sky blue eyes—pleading with him for the pain to stop.

"Ben, this would have been over long ago if you weren't so stubborn," Jacen chided calmly, watching the thirteen-year-old in front of him trembling at his feet in a cold sweat. He took a few steps closer and met his cousin's gaze. He folded his arms across his chest and narrowed his brown eyes ever so slightly.

"It hurts, doesn't it?"

Ben didn't know if he wanted to spit in Jacen's face or laugh hysterically, but seeing that his body was in no condition to muster the coordination to do either, he let it go and settled for an affirmative nod of the head.

Jacen turned his gaze away for a second, contemplating, concentration unbroken as a particularly painful white-hot aftershock shot though Ben's young body, causing a dehumanizing scream to fill the silence of the forest around them. Tears began to fall down Ben's cheeks as he allowed himself to fall flat on the ground, letting the muddy earth soak into his thin Jedi tunic.

"Get up."

This time, Ben did feel an ironic laugh attempt to pass though his lips. Did he look like he wanted to lie here in the cold, forest mud, in so much pain that even thinking hurt? Wouldn't he get up if he had the Force-damned energy to do so?

"Get up, Ben."

Ben attempted to tense his body enough to create some leverage so his arms could push his weakened body up, but he was rewarded with painful spasms going off all at once across his body, a result of overused muscles and the build up of lactic acid. He bit his lip to hold the anguished cry back, but only succeeded for so long. Unceremoniously, he let his body relax back into the wet mud, only to feel Jacen's boot make harder than necessary contact with his ribcage, causing him to instinctively curl into the fetal position.

"This is the last time I'm going to tell you this, Ben. Get up now."

Although the pain dominated his mind, Ben still came to the conclusion that Jacen's wrath would probably hurt more. Slowly, he focused on flexing his fingers, then arms and moved them beneath his chest. Slowly he pushed up, grunting from the pain that shot throughout his body as his legs folded themselves underneath him. He paused at this midpoint between standing and laying flat on the ground, pleased and somewhat surprised at his body's ability to react so quickly to commands. As if he could feel Jacen becoming angry at him stopping before completing the motion, he attempted to rise on his shaky legs. He stumbled back onto his knees the first time, catching his breath in his sore, raw throat, making his heart skip a few beats before it found its rhythm again. The second time, he tried he bent one leg and attempted to push off on it—but even at thirteen, one weakened, wobbly leg couldn't support his weight and halfway up he fell over.

Finally he crotched on both legs and used his arms beside him as supports and stood up all the way, taking a few steps back before he properly found his balance. His young body shook with the dizziness that accompanied the change in elevation and he clutched at his head until it subsided enough so he could look at Jacen.

"I'm up."

A smirk made its way across his older cousin's face. "It appears you are. And I only had to ask you three times." Jacen looked down, quietly laughing at a joke Ben found anything but funny. He looked up with a comical note dancing in his eyes and motioned with his hand.

"Come."

Ben felt the pain in his chest become replaced with rage. Come? Sore, tired and unable to rest, it was a miracle he was standing upright. Feeling queasy, he knew that it was only a matter of time before his legs gave out. He whipped his head around in search of a tree or rock or something to support his weight, not even flinching when the pain from sudden, irregular movements caused the pressure inside his head to pound rapidly at his skull and saw that between the course of entering the forest, the Force lightening, and now, Jacen had lead him into a clearing—a clearing Ben never remembered being lead into. "Where," he blurted out, clasping the bridge of his nose between his thumb and first finger, "Why?"

Ben screamed in agony as a short but powerful aftershock ran though his body. Jacen shook his head in disappointment. "We really need to work on your listening. I said 'come' not 'question'. We could be well on our way there by now if you would just listen and stop complaining."

Ben felt the tears coat his eyes again as his Master began to blur out of view. He didn't care that he was the son of the Grand Master. He didn't care that it was childish. "This hurts."

Jacen laughed for a few moments, shoving his hands into the pocket of the jacket he wore over his Jedi attire. "If it didn't hurt, how would it aid you? Aid me?"

Ben coughed a few times and rubbed his eyes clean of moisture. Like always, Jacen succeeded in making him feel like he was eight years old again. "Jacen it-it hurts really badly. Make it stop."

Jacen tilted his head, examining the trembling thirteen year old in front of him. "Not yet. I need it to push you. I need to see if you're capable of using it."

He closed the gap between them and reached out with both arms, clasping Ben's upper arms until his fingernails dug into the skin beneath the fabric of his apprentice's tunic, pulling him up straighter until he was off the ground. The relief Ben felt from his legs was automatic but he was careful to hide it in his face. Jacen leaned forward, so close that Ben felt Jacen's hot breath on his nose and was eye-to-eye with the sadistic smirk playing across his lips.

"I was going to do this in the larger clearing up ahead, but you aren't cooperating, and I don't have time to waste." He released his grip and Ben, unable to keep his balance, collapsed back into a pile of legs and arms on the muddy ground at his feet, a small whimper escaping his lips at the contact his sore body made with the forest floor.

Above him a lightsaber ignited with a snap-hiss.

"Fight me."

Ben watched the trees several meters away sway in and out of view, and then lowered his eyes to the green-lighted ground. Fight me? He repeated the phrase in his head, bouncing it back and forth before the thought came clearly. He wants me to fight him?

Ben's body had long since become numb from his wet, muddy clothes, causing the pain to subside to something more bearable. He flexed his right hand experimentally, taking several moments to draw the conclusion that he wouldn't he able to keep a good, solid grip on his lightsaber handle. Less then a meter away from his head, Jacen's lightsaber buzzed with anticipation and he heard it grow louder and louder until he was looking at a green-washed dirt floor, the light blade pointed at his neck and just out of range of his peripheral vision.

Jacen's voice was a deadly calm. "Ben, you will get up, and you will fight, or you will forfeit your place in the Order."

Ben pushed himself up into a seated position, and then, slowly, inched away from the tip of the light blade until he was able to maneuver himself into an upright position, dizzy and short of breath from the amount of energy it took. He unhooked the lightsaber from his right hip and held it in his hands for a few moments, trying to accustom his numb fingers into the grooves they had created, before thumbing the blade's activator and sloppily assuming the same mid guard Jacen had.

"Attack me."

Ben reached as far as he could into the Force—his connection to it was still weak from his mind's exhaustion—and threw his overtired body into a basic offensive maneuver, one Jacen caught on his blade without even blinking.

"Put more strength into it. You won't always be at peak performance levels."

So this is what the lesson's about? This justifies Force lightening?Ben parried away Jacen's blade to the left and executed a tight circle with his wrist, bringing his blade horizontal and slashing it towards his Master's neck. Jacen ducked easily underneath it, forcing Ben to halt his counterattack and assume a defensive position to keep Jacen's blade from getting underneath his again.

Back in control of where his and Jacen's blade went, he swung a few more times, high, low, high, waist, thigh, low, Jacen meeting each blow halfway and forcing Ben to remain the offensive player. As the duel—although it was more of a mock duel, the ones that Jacen had with Ben when he was ten to satisfy the boy's curiosity—dragged on, each blow was delivered with less and less brute strength and Ben could faintly make out the small frown on his Master's face.

"Faster."

With thoughts of wanting this insanity to end, Ben obliged as must as possible, now completely relying on the Force to keep his body going as his muscles alone had failed him minutes ago. He stepped up his basic footwork into something a bit more intricate, hoping that it would satisfy Jacen so he could collapse and rest.

"Good. Faster. Harder. Press your advantage Ben."

What advantage! Rage at Jacen's constant lack of empathy stung his chest and he pushed himself harder. Ben felt his lungs give up, a sickly wheezing sound indicating that his body demanded oxygen but his lungs wouldn't expand. A rush of unoxygenated blood to the head caused him to waver, feeling the hot burn of Jacen's blade cut into and nearly amputate his right wrist, causing Ben to gag as the smell of burnt flesh as he switched his lightsaber to his left hand, instinctively clutching his right wrist protectively against his chest; not even a second later, without a conscious thought, the Force took the cyclical cycle of his lungs over, working them harder then they had ever worked before.

Ben swung his blade faster.

Master and apprentice became a blur as Jacen turned his defensive stance into a combination of the two, lightsabers clashing together every few seconds, the smell of burning ozone stinging both their nostrils.

Only after he was immersed in this deadly dance did Ben wonder why he was still standing. His body had given up, pushed to its limits and beyond, drained of every single energy source—and the fight got easier. He realized that he no longer felt the pain and misery controlling his body. And then the thought occurred to him; it wasn't him who was fighting. His entire body—muscles, organs, and mind—and long since collapsed. His body was being moved by the Force. He was an extension of the vastness of its power, as was the lightsaber he wield. But why? How?

"Don't hold back Ben." Jacen's voice was strangely loud and clear over the noise of the lightsabers. "You're falling behind."

Ben let out a low, animalistic grunt and sprung forward with a power he didn't know even the Force had. He pressed on faster, harder, no longer thinking about the end, but rather concentrating on the rage that grew in his chest. The sting of the Force lightening was no longer there; it had been replaced with a hole that screamed for Ben to fill it with more. So he did.

Every move Jacen made became clearer.

Sight, sound, and reaction time sharpened.

What was once a tingling, anticipation feeling at the back of his head exploded and took over his conscious mind.

Ben Skywalker ceased less and less to exist, yet his presence in the Force grew fourfold.

And then he heard it.

Kill him.

Ben lost his concentration for a split nanosecond. That wasn't Jacen.

Feed me. Fill the void.

Ben's blue eyes narrowed in thought; he had long since separated his mind from his body, allowing the Force to push him though the necessary motions. He probed the Force for the voice, finding it, but unable to determine its location. Seemingly, it was everywhere at once. It curled up against him, like a cat to its owner, allowing Ben to stroke it, to feel it, to experience it, but not to capture it.

Let me help you.

Ben recalled his touch, uncertain. At the back of his mind, he felt Jacen begin to take the upper hand in the duel. No! He can't win! Not after all of this!

Let me help you and I can assure you he won't.

Ben shifted his focus back into the fight, willing the Force to help him push on long enough to call kill point; but what good was it going to do? Jacen Solo was a Jedi Master of the Force, living and unified. He would never win.

Who are you?

The presence echoed in the Force, the equivalent of a human laugh. Son of Skywalker, you question when you should accept.

"Ben, if you continue to keep your focus off the duel, you will not win," Jacen's voice broke in. He caught Ben's blade under his, temporarily stalling the duel so he could make his point. "Strength is useless without the focus to use it properly."

Ben felt the void in his chest grow at Jacen's words. He was sore, tired, weak, using his left hand to guide his blade and was more powerful now than he had ever been—and he didn't even get a word of praise. Like always.

Jacen twisted his blade to release Ben's and raised it above his head then quickly slashing it down vertically. Ben caught it on his blade, the two forming a cross just inches away from Ben's chest. He felt Jacen draw the Force to him and within seconds the youngest Skywalker was on his knees, left arm shaking to keep the deadly blade away from his neck.

"It's over Ben. And I was so hoping that you would prove me wrong and win."

Use me!

Ben grabbed the presence and felt his body begin to tremble with power. A sickly thick fluid filled his veins and his heart began pumping to a different beat. He felt his legs spring up from their bent position and for the first time in his entire life, Ben felt confusion radiating off Jacen.

And it felt good.

What are you?

I'm the pain—

As if possessed, he began on the offense again. His movements were no longer strategic or controlled but rather purely focused power and rage.

—your tears—

He threw his lightsaber over his head and brought it down hard and fast. The hissing of the two colliding was short and brief and Ben smiled as he drew on the Force causing Jacen to stumble backwards and onto the ground.

—the void—

His eyes stung from the light of the midday sun and he howled and snapped them closed.

—but more precisely—

He opened his eyes to the sound of Jacen's sickly sweet laughter and cries of joy and caught the reflection of his burning yellow eyes in Jacen's dilated black pupils.

—I'm you.

Later that day, when Luke Skywalker asked his son what he and Jacen had done in the forest all afternoon to warrant the wrist injury and exhaustion, Ben was eager, much to Jacen's dismay, to share his memories of using green Force lightening and lightsabers to kill the violent tree monkeys with glowing yellow eyes.