Author's Note:
For this chapter I'm moving several incidents from the Star Wars comics and EU to later or earlier in Luke's life.
Anyways this is when I start playing fast and loose with canon timelines a little. And condense what arguably could have been five more chapters into one chapter with flashbacks.
I just desperately needed to get Luke off of goddamn Tattooine to be able to keep my drive for the story going as we saw in how long the hiatus was.
Chapter 3: Forge
A sixteen year old Luke stood alone in front of the Tusken leader. His heart beat frantically in his chest, a sensation he was able to calm by embracing the force and letting it flow throughout him.
He ignited his father's blue lightsaber, and prepared for battle, his mind quickly flickering to the day he had revealed his powers to old Ben and that his uncle had agreed to allow him to be trained.
Two years prior the young Luke desperately flew his skyhopper at full speed towards the distressing battle the Force had shown him.
He had gotten flashes of his Uncle Owen being kidnapped and endangered while training with Revan and had immediately rushed out with his teacher's blessings.
Racing close to the cliffside Luke became aware of the vicious Wookiee battling old Ben, who had a lightsaber, while his uncle hung from the side of the cliff.
Luke popped open the windshield of the T-16 and reached out with both hands in a mighty simultaneous double force pull, yanking Uncle Owen through the air into his grip, and sending the Wookiee flying off into the valley below.
Ben sharply turned and looked up at him, and Luke knew things were going to change.
The masked Tusken on his giant bantha took out something from his belt, and to no surprise of Luke's, ignited his own green blade.
"So this is the Holocron you have been learning from?" Obi-Wan questioned Luke.
"Yes, Master. Master Revan has taught me many things, I am competent in most of the basic force powers of his time period and I have learned Form I of lightsaber combat and moved on to touching forms III and V with him. As well as learning my pre-Sith Empire War history," Luke replied, somewhat more deferentially than he normally would. General Kenobi was a bit of a legend from the recent history research he had done at Revan's behest.
"Hmm...and which form feels the best to you?"
"I...actually Master Kenobi I want to learn enough of them to master the Niman form, like Exar Kun. I am aware of the criticisms bu-" Kenobi cut him off with a raised hand.
"A master of Niman is much different from a practitioner of Niman. I saw many practitioners who were not primarily combatants fall during the Clone Wars, but the one master of the form I knew had very few equals. I agree that we can attempt this path with you, young Padawan."
There was a momentary paused as the two warriors stared each other down.
"You carry the blade and the looks of Skywalker...so that man could not even hold to the most basic tenants of the Order," The name was hissed with rage and malice the denoted a personal grudge.
And suddenly Luke realized he had made a huge mistake coming into this conflict without Obi-Wan. This was no force sensitive Tusken that had found a lightsaber and used it for intimidation.
This was a Jedi who had survived the Purge and then fallen into banditry and hatred.
As the Tusken leader flipped off of his bantha with perfect grace and came down on Luke with a clinically perfect Ataru overhead strike, he raised his lightsaber and sent out a small call down his Padawan bond with his master.
'Help!'
"Very well, Luke, I have consulted with the Holocron and have come to an arrangement with...Master Revan," Obi-Wan handed the databank back to Luke.
"I will handle your primary training from now on. However Revan will supplement this with Lore, Tactics, the gaps in lightsaber form-knowledge needed for your Niman training, and ancient techniques which had fallen out of practice over the millennia of peace the Jedi Order had leading up to the Clone War," As he finished this an image of Revan appeared from the Holocron and bowed deeply.
"It would be my pleasure Master Kenobi, to pass on forgotten techniques to you as well if you had spare time."
"Oh I am sure we will find little time to teach an old dog such as I new tricks. But what time there is I will give over to my curiosity in this regard."
The Tusken growled out a laugh, "Skywalker's spawn practicing Niman? How quaint. Let a true master show you how it is done, whelp!"
With a flourish of his blade the Tusken began executing a flurry of blows and strikes pulled straight out of traditional Niman katas, all woven together seamlessly.
Luke, immediately on the defensive could barely keep up, even as he sensed that his opponent was playing with him.
And he had been using Force Speed to enhance his reaction time from the very beginning of the fight.
Rumors of increased Tusken banditry had been going around for the last year, however it was only recently that they had become concrete in the area around Anchorhead and Mos Eisley.
A few Jawa caravans had been hit initially and then finally it had escalated into two major attacks.
One day the small mine run by the Stonerigger family was raided by the increasingly bold band of Tuskens. The droids and machinery were smashed, the weapons they had for defense were stolen, and the family was slaughtered except for the oldest child, Kandji, who was abducted.
The stolen weapons were then used two days later to jump one of the smaller Hutt pleasure barges, and there were reports of the Tusken leader wielding a lightsaber.
The first attack incensed the locals, as not only was the mine very important for being the only non-scrap source of metals in the area, but Kandji was engaged to Biggs Darklighter, of the very influential Darklighter family.
The second attack however incensed the Hutts, which meant that the posse that the Darklighters rounded up to attack and take out the raiders had some extra support in the form of weapons and a few mercenaries.
Luke had volunteered, and while he would be using a longstock blaster rifle, he did keep his lightsaber on him. Just in case.
A Force Push from the Tusken sent Luke tumbling through the air, he eventually flipped around to get his feet below him, yet still he skidded back through the sand upon landing.
"You are strong in the Force, I will admit, young Skywalker. But you are not the only Legacy here. My father too was a great Jedi, the greatest of his time. So let us see, the son of a slave turned Jedi against the son of a Jedi turned Tusken, everything coming full circle here on the blistering sands of Tattooine."
Oh great, thought Luke, this guy thinks he's a poet.
With some struggle, Luke stood up straight and move his arms into the defensive stance of Soresu, forgoing his preferred Niman.
"Ah...yes that is a good way to play this. A smarter, more tactical mind than your father's. He would just rush into fights and hope his natural talent and the Force's grace got him through."
With that, the Tusken Jedi charged again.
They had hunted the outlying bands of Tusken raiders back over the last week. The mercenaries being invaluable in the actual combat with the smaller bands that had broken off of the larger one.
Luke had been getting some work in with his blaster rifle, using the Force's precognitive abilities to aim where his targets were going to be with unerring accuracy.
This had however gotten him some recognition and a bit of a reputation. The Hutt's mercenaries had noticed. One in particular, named Boushh, a masked alien of a species called the Ubese seemed puzzlingly suspicious of Luke's abilities. But Luke was not worried about that right now.
He was worried about stopping this entire thing before his friend got himself killed.
It was three days ago that they had found Kandji's corpse in a Tusken camp they had hit. Biggs was inconsolable.
Grief, sadness, rage, those all tore through is mind, body, and soul in a tempest of emotions that had Luke fearing both he personally being overwhelmed through the Force's sensitivity to those emotions and of his friend going off alone or jumping into some reckless plan of vengeance.
After giving it some thought Luke knew that he was not doing as much as he could hiding his powers.
He needed to separate from the group and find a way to challenge the Tusken leader on his terms, with his lightsaber and the Force on his side. Then the warband would fall apart with no leader. And Biggs wouldn't get himself killed.
"Well then, Padawan! Your master must be someone of note and talent in Form Three!" The Tusken Jedi commented as he hammered away at Luke's defensive Soresu stance. Still toying with the boy.
"Perhaps you would like to learn from me? To truly master Niman? Together we could overthrow the Hutts, the true masters of this world. I might even spare the farmers and forgive them their depredations against my people as long as they, and you, submit to Tusken rule."
Luke gritted his teeth, remembering the graves out behind the farm, to Shmi Skywalker-Lars and Cliegg Lars. His own grandmother, killed by these same people.
Kandji, killed and raped by these people, under this very same leader in fact.
Biggs, half-crazed with grief and rage.
"Not only would I never join the Tuskens after what they did to my family and friends, but I will never embrace the Dark Side the way you have! You are no longer any sort of Jedi I recognize!"
And with that Luke pushed back onto the offensive, pushing the Force out through a Force Kick instead of a normal hand push and causing the Tusken leader to skid backwards a few meters. Quickly he rushed in drawing some of Revan's Shien training into his Niman strategy.
Not as overwhelmingly forceful and aggressive as the revised Djem So version of Form V, Shien was a more tactical sort of aggression. Aggressively creating and exploiting weakpoints in a way that works best with the twirling reverse handed grip favored by many Shien specialists of the past.
Luke, however, still used Niman as his base and did not switch to the reverse-grip.
"Urk…" The Tusken grunted out as he blocked a particularly strong strike, "You do have some versatility child. You have that over your father for sure. But that man...he had POWER!"
And with the shout of that last word Luke was sent flying by a massive force wave rippling out from the Tusken who was now stalking closer and closer to the young Padawan.
"Well I think it's just about time this was over, don't you?" And he raised his blade above his head to strike.
"Oh, I agree...Knight A'Sharad Hett," A voice commented from behind him and Hett spun around just in time to block a strike from none other than the legendary General Kenobi.
"Kenobi! I should have known only you would train a spawn of Skywalker!"
"Guilty as charged, now why don't you release all this rage and hatred and return to the tenants of the Order, Hett? You still have not fallen so far you cannot be redeemed."
Their blades continued to clash in a whirlwind that Luke could barely follow, even as they conversed.
"Bah! These farmers and Hutt following maggots have slaughtered my people for generations! Even your so called Chosen One was guilty of such a genocide! Sometimes to protect the people you must attack their oppressors!"
"You are not a guardian any longer, Hett. You have become a warlord and I can see you slipping to the Dark Side."
"Warlord? We were both generals in the Clone Wars! Where we were merely warlords for the Republic! A bantha steak by any other name still tastes the same!"
"Yes...past mistakes however do not justify current ones! The danger is in becoming that which you fight! It was that trap which the Jedi fell into and that is the one that takes you now!"
With a flourish of his blade Kenobi sent Hett flying backwards into a dune.
With a growl Hett stood back up and brought out a second lightsaber, his father's, and ignited it, dropping into a Jar'Kai stance.
"You simpering fool! I was raised to manhood by my people and my father Sharad Hett, greatest Jedi of his age! These settlers farm my people's blood from the land! And I shall exact a blood price! They shall leave this land or be buried beneath it!"
"I cannot allow that. You were a great Jedi, A'Sharad Hett. Son of a great Jedi. But you walk down a path of revenge and it ends here."
Luke pulled himself up onto a knee and noticed he was not the only observer. Some of the captains and lower war leaders under Hett had finally managed to get past the trap he had laid to cut them off and were watching the single combat.
"You will have a Jedi funeral, Master Kenobi, that I promise."
The two masters of their craft dueled fiercely. Hett's dual blades hammering into Kenobi's expert defenses back to back.
The first blow to break the stalemate was from the enraged Hett, a kick sent Kenobi flying backwards through the air, though the man quickly turned it into a Force directed cartwheel.
The second blade flew out, whirling through the air like a buzzsaw coming in at the elder Jedi.
However Kenobi deflected it mid-flip with his own blade and as he landed Hett came back in with the blade returning to his hand for more strikes.
However Kenobi was a master of using defense to draw his opponents into overextending themselves.
And that is exactly what happened.
Kenobi purposefully took an elbow strike to the jaw to allow himself entry past his opponent's own defenses.
He let loose a mighty Force Push straight into Hett's gut, and telekinetically grabbed the man and threw him away, simultaneously disarming him of his lightsabers and worst of all unmasking him.
To be unmasked in combat was the gravest sin for the Tuskens.
Hett cried out in rage and agony as he saw his war leaders watching the fight turn and leave.
"You have shamed me Kenobi! Shamed me! I will one day make you and all of Skywalker's line rue this day!"
However Kenobi was walking over to pick up his student.
"Come back to the light, Hett. Start over again somewhere new. Without all this rage."