Chapter 9
DISCLAIMER: negotiate with America…..?
(A.N: really important chapter! Warning that you're probably gonna be whumped in the face facts and spoilers, teehee.)
"Ok, Kat," Luke pointed his blue lightsaber back up. "One more spar, then I'll let you go."
Kat took another glance at the glorious muscled body before her and ignited her own yellow lightsaber. "Just once more?"
He smiled though his heavy breathing causing his chest to heave up and down. "One more. Ready when you are."
Luke remained in a defensive stance as Kat leapt backwards and their lightsabers clashed. Luke stumbled back slightly and was forced to remain defensive as Kat was, to put simply, incredibly quick and agile when it came to lightsaber combat. Luke was surprised to see her not half falling over herself as she swung her lightsaber around, as if she had years of experience.
With only the Maker knowing where the droids were, Luke eventually was able to perform attacks on his beloved when she paused for a breath.
As they danced around them clearing even more, Kat felt something emerge from within her. Something very… dark. And she didn't have much control of this feeling either.
She had felt this before. During a battle, nights with Luke, that trip to Coruscant… except this time she felt it much more.
Why wasn't Yoda pointing this out? Could he even sense it?
But when Kat had managed to create distance between her and Luke during their friendly spar, she had only leapt forward and knocked the lightsaber out of Luke's hand and tumbled to the ground on top of him.
But as soon as Luke opened re-opened his eyes to tease Kat about her skills, he saw something very, very wrong.
Her vibrant, dark green eyes were no longer there. It seemed that she had bright yellow iris' instead of her natural colour.
And as Kat came out of her trance, her eyes went back to normal and she realised what overcame her for that moment. Fear was written all over her face as she swallowed hard and rolled off the top of Luke.
"Call that a draw." She whispered and stood up, walking further into the forest.
"Kat!" Luke stood up, a little too quickly as he felt dizziness wash over him. "Kat! Wait!"
Despite his protests, Kat kept walking on into the forest.
By the time Luke did eventually catch up, she was sitting on the root of a large tree, head hung low with her plait drooping down her side. She could feel Luke's presence grow slowly nearer and eventually felt his warm body take a seat right next to her.
They were silent for the next few moments. It was, strangely, Kat who spoke first.
"I'm a Jedi, not a Sith." She spoke to herself. "A Jedi, not Sith. Jedi, not Sith. Jedi, not Sith."
It was now that Luke very well understood what Kat had felt. He placed his arm around her shoulders and kissed the top of her head. "You are anything but Sith."
Kat slowly shook her head. "I felt like something cold… dark… elusive…" she admitted. "But I felt like I was in control though, but I wasn't. It felt like me but…"
"Shhh, don't think on it too much." He whispered into her hair.
"No, Luke, you don't get it." She shook her head again. "I've felt that before, but not quite to that extent. And that time… I felt like I was that Darth Vader guy. No, no. Worse. I felt like Emperor Palpatine himself."
Master… her head shot up with wide eyes as she thought of such horrors.
Luke was about to say something, but Kat placed a finger to his lips to silence him during her thoughts.
"Wait a diddly darn second, what was that thing Master Yoda told me the other day?"
"Did you zone out again?" Luke removed Kat's finger from his lips.
"Maybe."
Luke rolled his eyes.
"That thing about one master, one apprentice…"
"Oh," Luke came to realisation. "It's not that he has any hard feelings on you, it's just that you're, apparently, almost complete with your training. You're here mainly for the construction of your lightsaber and advice. Your Master is not Yoda."
Kat stood up as more dark thoughts plagued through her mind as pieces began to come together. When I first started using the Force… V'kala's face…
Kat thought his face was of surprise, and it was once one to look back at and laugh at because his expression was so priceless. Although now, she realised it was of realisation and horror and worry before slow acceptance.
V'kala knew something… Kat thought as she stood up and started pacing. Ben Kenobi knew something… Yoda knows something… my mother would know something… hell, Darth Vader probably knows something…
But Emperor Palpatine will know everything.
Luke may be on top of Vader's most wanted list, but Kat was the ultimate prize on Palpatine's.
Kat wasn't an idiot. She had read of the Jedi Purge back twenty-two years ago. If she was twenty-one that meant her mother had survived Order 66.
Then why is she dead? Kat thought.
"Kat?" Luke's voice disturbed her train of thought.
"Hm?"
"You're driving me crazy," Kat smiled at this. "You're going back and forth and I'm sitting here in anticipation."
Kat's smile disappeared as stumbled across this new information.
"Things just got really complicated." She stated simply.
Luke's head tilted to its side. "… Explanation?"
"Luke. Complicated. Can't place into words. Must see Yoda. You work on my ship, power up the droids. I'm going into the cave."
"Wait!" Luke stood up at the words of the last sentence. "If you're going in, then you should know something…"
"What?"
"The visions in there… they're like prophesies. The past or future, or even a worst fear-"
"Luke." Kat silenced him once more as she sat back down next to him. "That's what I'm counting on. There're things I need to find out about myself. Hopefully, something on the past." Kat eyed him as he remained silent. "Are you sure you're ok after what you saw?"
Luke nodded. "'Just dandy', as you would say."
Even though Kat didn't know what Luke saw, she could only guess that it was bad.
Luke, without any further thought or haste, brought his head down too Kat's and let his lips brush lightly over hers. Kat always allowed herself to respond heat it up a bit, simply because she loved it when he stole a kiss like that.
Luke sometimes would let himself lose control in situations like this, go further and let things become a lot more heated, when Kat agreed. But Luke knew better than that at a time like this.
"I love you," Luke parted the kiss and rested his forehead on Kat's.
"I love me too."
"Kat!"
Kat rolled her head back and laughed at her little joke and Luke's face. "Don't worry," she placed both hands on either side of his face. "I love you as well."
Luke shook his head in disbelief and kissed her once more. "Go. If you have a lot on your mind then ask Yoda."
Kat finally managed to leave Luke's embrace and walk to Yoda's small hut, even though the fear started to swell within her again.
She found the small Jedi Master meditating on a rock outside the hut.
"Waiting for you, I have been." He said. "The cave you are ready for."
Kat nodded and sat down next the Jedi Master. "Something's wrong with me. And I have the impression you've known for a very long time."
"Ah, Silver Girl knows now," he opened his eyes and look at her. "Nothing wrong with you there is. Though something dark there is."
"Yoda, I'm going to have to be assertive like my friend, here. I need to know what has happened to me, and I also have a strong impression that the Emperor is behind this. Firstly, did Palpatine kill my mother?"
"Master Nadae…" he said the name as if it were a painful memory. "killed by Darth Sidious, she was."
It was now that Kat felt a deep anger for the Emperor. It turned out things were not only complicated, but personal as well.
"Let your anger flow, you will not." Yoda felt the hate emitting from her mind. "Thoughts to calm you. Think of them. Need calming thoughts later, you will."
"It's like how Darth Vader killed Anakin Skywalker, Luke's father." Kat realised. Luke had told her as she showed him the hologram of Nadae.
Yoda simply nodded. "Similar, it is. Though not quite.
"The Dark Side of the Force," he trailed down a new topic. "Strong with you, it is."
Though taking it in for consideration for the first time, this was no surprise to Kat. "Then why am I becoming a Jedi? Yoda, if I am some sort of secret agent to the Dark Side and the Empire and Palpatine without knowing it, then why are you letting me become a Jedi? Why place a lightsaber in my hands when I can be so dangerous with it?"
"Because," Yoda stated. "You are not a Sith. Belong with the Dark Side, you do not. Have the Empire's intentions, is something you lack. Now it is complicated, is it not?"
Kat knew that her morals were against the Empire's, and she'd rather die than commit genocide and rule the Galaxy. "Then why is the Dark Side so strong with me?"
"No more can I tell you." He simply said. "In a state of panic, you are not. Control you have, Silver Girl, most of the time. Into the cave you will go. Remember, though the Dark Side it with you, fear it can still give you. Dark you may be, but your destiny, on a different path it lies."
Kat understood and got back up on her feet. At least she now knew something, but she still didn't understand why she hadn't much control of the Force during her childhood. It was the whole reason why the either laughed at her or were afraid of her…
Well, that or the white hair.
Kat felt the elusiveness of the cave as she strode through the hollowed, blackened tree to the cave's entrance. Sitting on the edge of the hole, she unclipped her lightsaber from her utility belt and stared down into the blackness with was filled with cold air and reptiles of sorts.
"Hello Darkness, my old friend."
She swung her legs out and slid in, landing on both feet with ease.
"I've come to talk with you again."
Kat carefully moved forward placing one foot in front of the other with utter silence. She knew that whatever was down here wasn't real, but she felt the need to remain as silent as possible anyway.
From what Kat had just heard and of her past, she was expecting large numbers of stormtroopers from the day her uncle died. Perhaps she'd see Vader, not that he had a lot to do with Kat.
Or the more likely one, Palpatine. If it were him that she'd encounter, perhaps the vision would slip out what he had exactly done to her.
Or, by the way Luke had put it, and the person she'd be most likely to see, herself.
Kat was half expecting an exact replica of herself or a mirror in the cave. She thought she'd have to battle herself or comfort her seven-year-old self. That's what she expected.
But instead, she saw something much more horrifying.
She looked at the person before her. The way they dressed, the colour of their eyes, an apparent age of nearly… thirty?
The worst thing was that Kat realised it couldn't have been anyone else.
"Kat my love!" Luke ran up to her and eloped his arms around her body, pressing her into the black armour he now wore.
Which was an awful lot like Darth Vader's.
"It's been so long!" he scanned her with his devilish yellow eyes. "Almost a year, my love. I've missed you so much!"
He pulled her up so her could kiss her, after what was, apparently, a year. He's a very good kisser for not being real at all…
But through the humour, she was frightened as hell. This isn't the Luke I know… she thought. My one is a Jedi, not a Dark Lord.
"Luke…" she could only whisper his name. She didn't have the courage anymore to talk properly.
"Do not fear, my love," he stroked the side of her face with dark affection. "All will be well, you'll see."
Luke let go and strode across the small space. "Come with me," he opened up his arms. "Together we can rule the Galaxy! All we have to do is overthrow the newly arisen Palpatine! And we'll do it together. You and I." he came back and held her hands in his. "Come with me, and I'll give you everything you ever dreamed of."
Kat was struggling to breathe now. "Who are you?" she managed to ask. "Luke, all I want is your love. It's all I need. We don't need the Galaxy to have everything," she could feel tears building up behind her eyes. "I don't know you anymore. This is a path I can't follow. Come home, Luke!"
She could see the anger burn within his yellow eyes. "I do all this for you?" his breath had become shaky in hatred. "I become all powerful, for you. I offer you the Galaxy. I promise you that you will never die. And you dare turn me down?
"Kat, join me, and you'll be safe. I'll protect you from all the Galaxy's dangers. I can give you everything! Don't you turn your back on me after I offer you all this!" by now, the vision had grabbed her arms and held her tight in his grip. "Don't turn against me! If you are no longer with me, then you are my enemy."
Only a true Sith deals in absolutes.
Kat couldn't take it any longer. She felt like she didn't know Luke anymore. She let herself fall to the ground in weakness and let sleep overtake her body.
"Cahira!"
No…
"Look at what you could have, Cahira! All this power!"
Kat awoke with a pain in her head. Most certainly the worst experience in my life. She humorously concluded in her head.
"Kat,"
That was when she really startled awake. She was rested against a tree with a men's coat laid across her chest.
"Kat, you're ok. It's just me, Luke."
Kat shuddered at the vision she had seen in the cave. She scrambled backwards against the tree and hid behind the jacket.
"Kat, are you alright?"
Kat honestly didn't know. She looked on at Luke who was crouched in front of her, concern smeared across his face and wide, innocent, blue eyes stared at her.
She looked at Luke, her Luke, and still couldn't contain her fear.
What can you become?
So, if you all will excuse me, I'll just walk away like a madman laughing in the most sinister way possible.
- yoda-is-cool (although apparently I'm not)
