Authors Notes: Hello everyone. At the time of me posing this the premier of RWBY Vol. 3 is only a few hours away! The trailer was posted earlier and I can't wait to watch it. I'm continuing experimenting with a new POV, it's essentially first person but Jayden recounts events he wasn't present for. Plus I made a reference to a real person, tell me how that goes over. Also I'm going to start incorporating more scenes from Jayden's past on remnant. As always please enjoy and leave comments!

Chapter 26: Fear

Dust filled the air and sweat dripped down my face as I deflected blaster fire from a super battle droid. One of the clones sprinted and ducked behind a rock next to me. "We need to shut down this factory Commander Jayden!" He said as he blasted the droid away.

"I Know! I'm trying" I yelled as more droids moved across the Geonossian plains to our position.

The clones comm unit beeped and he answered it. A second later he started cursing like a corellian pilot. "General Harthow just informed me General Skywalker and Commander Tano's forces are going to arrive sooner than expected." He yelled as he turned around and signaled more of our troops to advance. Suddenly a burst of red light shot through the back of his helmet. He dropped to the ground and rolled over. "You failed us." He said before finally dying.

The scene changed and I wasn't on Geonossis anymore. It was night and I was surrounded by giant fungus as a crab droid approached us. "Hit the deck Jayden!" Someone yelled as its twin blasters fired on us. I threw my light saber and took out its front right leg. It collapsed as its circuitry sparked where I'd severed its leg and Apache finished the job. I looked around to see who'd yelled at me. My eyes widened as I saw master Harthow lift a rock with the force and throw it at a tank at the back of the enemy lines. He wore tan robes beneath modified clone armor that covered his torso and arms. His brown cloak should have been far too ineffective for battle, but for him it was an irrelevant factor. "Good work Jayden. Push forward men! We will win the day!" He yelled as we began to advance.

I ran next to him with my saber in hand, ready to cut down anything that stood in our way. But before I reached any droids something caught my ankle causing me to fall down. My face smashed into the soft, mushy dirt, I turned my head to look behind me. My heart skipped a beat as I saw a clone gripping my foot and pulling me towards him. Both his legs had been blown off and there was a gaping hole in his chest. "You were a Jedi." He said as his hands reached my knee. "You were supposed to save us!" He yelled as more dead clones began moaning and grabbing at me.

"Master help!" I yelled. But he couldn't hear me over the sounds of battle. I looked back at the clones. "I did the best I could, I was just a kid!" I said as I began reaching out with the force.

"You were our leader." Another said as he grabbed my arm.

"We trusted you!" one said as he grabbed my throat.

"We thought you could show us a life besides war!" There were hundreds, all grabbing at me, all pulling me into them as they began to form a single black void. They kept yelling at me, about my failures, how I let them down. Finally they pulled me into the void, and there was blackness.

I sat bolt upright in my bed knocking my sheets to the floor and causing my bed to sway in the air. I wiped cold sweat from my forehead and looked around. It was still dark out so I was about to go back bed when suddenly it dawned on me, it was the day of the mission. After that I knew I couldn't get back to sleep. I quietly got off my bed and dropped to the floor. Heading over to the corner I sat down to meditate, to try and invoke a vision of the upcoming mission. But it was useless, It seemed that I was too distracted to see the future. In the end I just left the room and started wandering the halls, before I knew it I was up on the roof again.

I stood on the edge and looked out to the horizon. The moon shined on the campus grounds, the emerald forest, the city, and the forever fall north of the city. If the ship was a capital ship like we thought it was then there was likely more then the one hundred droids we've confirmed, possibly upwards of six hundred. It would take them mere hours to raze all of this and kill everyone in sight before the military could stop them, if they could stop them at all. I couldn't let that happen. "My training is complete, master?" I asked into the air.

"No." He said, his voice resounding throughout the roof. "But I've trained you as far as I can." He told me.

"But if my training isn't done then what am I suppose to do?" I asked. My head dropped a little and doubt filled me.

"You're journey will be a long one, and you will have many more masters. But your time under my training is done, there is nothing left for me to teach you." Qui-Gn said.

I sighed and lifted my head. "Ok. Thank you, for everything." Suddenly a thought entered my head and I remembered my fight with Darth Sion. "If I need to talk to you you'll answer right?" I asked.

"Of course Jayden, and may the Force be with you." He said. His voice dissipating into the night.

"I thought I'd find you here." A new voice said.

I turned my head and saw Yang. Not see her in the normal sense, I saw her Aura, even brighter than before my training. It was like golden flames were filling her entire body, all of her rage, tranquility, hope, fear, her entire essence. "Yeah. Guess I've made it my spot, so to speak." I said.

She walked up next to me and rested her arm on my shoulder. "So today's the day." She said staring off into the distance. "Gotta admit, I'm kind of excited" She told me.

I turned my head. "Gotta admit, you sound a bit insane." I told her. The idea was foreign to me, being excited for war. Sparing is one thing, hell even street fights to the death are different from war. Simpler, less chaotic. It's easier to focus when you don't have to worry about a frag grenade or a stray plasma missile heading your way.

She traced the side of my face with the back of her hand. "Don't be afraid Jayden." She said. It was so simple, but was meant to provide an infinite amount of comfort.

I grabbed her hand and held it there. My heart started racing while calming me at the same time. "Have I ever told you about Master Yoda?" I asked her.

She shrugged and moved in closer. "Maybe. People from your Galaxy have such weird names I can never keep them straight."

I held back several sarcastic comments and continued. "Yoda was the oldest, and greatest, of all the Jedi. He trained me, and all the Jedi, for nearly one thousand years." I stopped for a second. I could sense Yang's disbelief but went on. "He once told me 'Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering.'" I let go of Yang's hand and walked to the center of the roof. There I unsheathed my sword and held it out in front of me with both hands, it's faint blue glow standing out against the silver light of the moon. I began imaging opponents in my mind. Some with blades, some with guns, a variety of hybrid weapons, even some with lightsabers. I blocked and deflected. Parried, slashed, stabbed. Yang stood there, saying nothing, not even listening really, simply being there. "He wasn't wrong, but he wasn't entirely right either."

I did a back flip a threw my sword, calling it back to me with the Force. "Contradicting the wisdom of someone who's lived a thousand years? Really? What do you mean?" She asked. I could feel that she already knew, to some extent, what I meant, but she asked anyways, because she could also sense my feelings. She could sense that I needed to say it.

I stopped my hypothetical fight I twisted my sword into a reverse grip. "We feel fear for a reason, it does serve a purpose. As long as we don't let it control us it will makes us alert. If we choose to understand it then it allows us to see our weaknesses, and over come them." I said.

Yang nodded and walked over to me. "So, what do you fear?" She asked.

I turned to her. The sun began to rise over the horizon lighting the academy and the forest with a faint orange light. With my free hand I undid the bandana covering my eyes. It fell to my feet. I looked at Yang and took her in. Her long, flowing yellow hair. Her striking purple eyes that could turn red with rage. Her slim but firm build. Our eyes locked and I said one, single word. "You." Yang nodded. She already knew what I meant by this, but she wanted to hear it. I wanted to hear it. "And not just you. Ruby, Blake, Weiss, Oliver, Jaune, Pyrrha, Ren, Nora, everyone." Tears filled my eyes. I dropped my sword and stepped forward. I grabbed Yang and pulled her in. She buried her head in my shoulder and my head rested in her hair. "I care for you guys. I can't lose you." I said.

Yang pulled her head back a little and smiled. "And that's why you're leading us. She said.

I pulled back a little. "What?" I asked. Unsure of what she meant.

"The reason your leading us. You know what's at stake. You know the pain of losing people to war, that's why you won't. You'll pull us all through." Her words washed over me. I could tell she meant every word.

I let go of her. "If only it where that easy." I said under my breath.

She bent over and picked up my sword. She was about to hand it to me when she noticed something etched into the blade near the guard. "Huh. Never noticed this." She said taking a closer look. A flower, with petals arranged in a jar shape and more circling around the base. "Is that a daffodil?" She asked.

I took the sword from her a sheathed it. "Yup. I figured you guys all have emblems, so I wanted one" I told her as we headed towards the stairs.

"But why a daffodil?" She asked.

"You speak the language of flowers?" I asked in return.

"I don't think you actually speak flowers Jayden."

I laughed and shrugged her comment off. "It means new beginnings."

Ozpin watched our ship as it left the campus. He sipped his coffee and sighed. "They aren't ready, Master Jinn." Ozpin said as he activated his computer.

"No, they aren't." Qui- Gon replied. "But it is the will of the force."

Ozpin looked through files on his computer. He'd received a new report fro Qrow, one he couldn't ignore. "It seems they are to be forged in battle, in the harshness of reality."

Qui- Gon was silent for a moment. "You may be training one of the greatest heroes your world has ever known."

Ozpin paused, his coffee half way to his mouth. "Or its greatest villain."

I sat in the hold of the ship between Ren and Oliver. None of us talked. Oliver sharpened his sword, Norra slept with her head on Ren's shoulder, and Ruby listened to her head phones. I sat with my eyes closed, meditating, focusing myself before the mission. I focused on the sound of the ships engines, losing myself in it's rhythmic hum. I felt the force flow through me, I felt the aura from my comrades, I felt they were troubled. Afraid of what was to come, but even more then that, they were excited. "Are you surprised? They are warriors, finally given the chance to prove themselves."

I opened my eyes and looked around. Everyone was doing what the had been, but seemed totally unaware that I'd woken up, or of the man with decayed flesh standing before me. "Hey Sion, if your here for a rematch we're going to have to reschedule." I said, reaching for my lightsaber in case he decided to strike anyways.

He simply stood there and looked at me, judging me. For what, I have no idea. "That is not why I am here." He said. "Tell me, you know what they feel, but what is it you feel?" He asked me as he paced back and forth across the length of the hold.

"Don't you live in my head? Shouldn't you know?" I replied as I got up. "Also why are you still here? Didn't I already beat you?"

He stopped pacing and turned around. He looked at me, his milky white eye staring into me as intently as his working eye. "In life I discovered a way to retain my life upon death. By focusing on my pain I was able to keep my life force in my body even after it died. The Exile made me see the error of those ways, and she released me." Yang stared at my empty spot. As far as she knew I was there, but she could sense something was off. Darth Sion saw this and grinned. "Upon my death I attained a form similar to your masters, but infinitely less powerful. Though I retain my individuality in the force I can only appear to someone by using their mind as a vessel. I waited alone for nearly four thousand years before your master summoned me into you, and upon my defeat at your hands I choose to stay."

I rubbed my face with my hands. "Great, now I've got an ancient Sith Lord for a room mate. Just what I needed."

He waved his gloved hand to the side and shook his head. "That is not what I wish to talk about. What do you feel? I must hear you say it. You must speak it with your own tongue." He told me.

I thought for a second. I'd already told yang that morning, and he lived in my head so there was no use lying. "I'm afraid of losing my friends." I finally admitted.

He laughed at me, laughed at my answer to his question. My hand lit on fire and lightning arced between my finger tips as my anger started to boil. "You have come to believe your own lies. Let me show you the truth." Suddenly the scene changed. We were no longer on the air ship but in an alley in some city. It was night time, I looked around to see where we were when I noticed a large building illuminating the sky line with a single, large snow flake. The Schnee Dust headquarters. "Here we are, the kingdom you call Atlas. Winter, six years ago."

I slowly looked behind me and saw a child crouched against the wall behind some trash cans. He held a short length of pipe in his small hands. He was short, his close were too big for him but it probably didn't matter given his severely malnourished frame. His black hair was messy and partially covered his eyes. He shivered as electricity ran up his arms as he desperately tried to stay warm on the cold winters night. "That's me." I said matter of factly. It was before I met Torchwick so I didn't have my sword. Before that I'd used various weapons as I found them. Pipes, bats, knifes. Anything that could kill.

"You did what you had to to survive." Sion said. A man stumbled passed us, he carried an empty beer bottle loosely in his hand, the smell of cheap liquor wafted off his breath. "You hardened your heart." The younger version of me slowly got up and reached his hand out. "You forsook compassion, you acted on instinct." The man suddenly stopped. His head became rigid, in his drunken state he wasn't able to process what was happening. His head jerked sharply to the right, and his body fell to the ground. My younger self got up quickly and started searching his body. Money, valuables, anything.

Seeing the depraved creature Id been filled me with emotions. Anger, regret, sorrow. "Why show me this?" I asked him. What reason did he have for this?

"To show you the truth." His said, his deep voice resonating in the night. "It is not losing your friends you fear, that is merely a symptom. I side effect of a deeper cause." He said as my younger self jumped onto a fire escape and onto the roof of a nearby building. I'd go on to murder five more people that night, in a city like this six dead people wouldn't draw attention.

"All right Doctor Phil, why don't you explain exactly what I'm afraid of?" I said, getting annoyed at him.

Sion began to circle me. "You fear what you are becoming. You fear caring for your comrades, for you fear losing them, just as you lost so many in the Clone Wars. You fear not being that creature you just saw, at least then you didn't have to worry about people."

"Bull shit!" I yelled. My Hand lit up in bright orange flames and I launched them at him. Darth Sion lifted his hand up and knocked it to the side. He twisted his hand as if he were holding something and suddenly I felt pressure applied to my throat. I was lifted a few inches off the ground. My flames died down as I gasped for air, I wasn't suffocating but it was still difficult to breathe.

"Search your feelings Jayden. You know it to be true." He said as he let me go. "Do not run from this pain. Do as I did, embrace the pain. Let it fuel you and strengthen you. But do it for the right reasons." And with that he and he environment faded. I was back in the ship, sitting between Oliver and Ren.

"Jayden." Yang said. "We're here."