(Keisa's View)
(Personal Training Room)
(One Year Later; Keisa's 16 Years Old)
"This is completely useless…" I scowl under my breath when I enter my personal training room with the thick, silver, automatic door behind me closes with a hiss. With a slight shake of my head, I proceed, as my routine always has me, to take off my thin, black cloak to hang it on the coat rack that stands on the right side of the door. I run my hand through my hair, looking at the door, inwardly trying to calm myself as I am still pissed off at the idea of training for no particular reason.
Even worse, Father keeps "reassuring" me, "It's for the First Order's survival", but why should I care? No has infiltrated this chilled stink-hole for all my life, and if Father is so concerned about the survival of the First Order, why not send me to some revolting town or somethin' for me to wipe clean!? It'd be great. I'd finally have a chance to leave here, but of course he wouldn't accept it. He never has and for all I know, he never will.
But here I am, complying with his wish. For some reason, I cannot make myself leave this place. My heart desires it so bad, yet the only thing I can do is imagine me leaving. That's it. I shake my head again.
"Well, it might just take time...I have two hours anyways…" I spit out, turning my body to look upon my vastly, athletic-based, furnished room.
From the door and looking North, the back wall has a horizontal "obstacle course", compiled of five, light, small, circular, smooth and slick platforms that float on a pool of water to hop across. A ladder than ascends to a metal cylinder with tiny, retractable (if I wish for them not to be up) grips to climb across. After that is hanging beams, a rope to swing on and then a steep, ascending wall to dash up to gather enough momentum to manage to cling to the top. Stretching the whole right of the room is a balance beam. The left part of the room has two treadmills (one used to be for Father when I trained alongside him), a trampoline (to practice my jumps and flips) and a large mat to stretch on. Also, that mat is where I train with a Marksman H-Combat Remote (or "ball blaster" as I called it when I was little) and a repeatedly reconstructed training droid to practice my lightsaber skills against. On the front wall is my coat rack, sweat towels and a water fountain. With a stretch of my arms, I glance around the room, pondering on what to start my training with.
"Alright…I guess the training droid is first today…" I murmur out, eyes locked onto the humanoid-training droid. With a scowl, I summon two training sabers, clip them into the droid's hands and with a flick of my fingers, activating it. Instantly, it charges at me, spinning its sabers, the blades nearly stroking the floor. As it charges, I clench my fists together and right when the droid attacks, I swiftly dodge it by shifting my body left and right, a quick stepping back, leaping to the side, flipping and (only once) corkscrewing in the air repeatedly.
At one point, the droid swings for my head, in which I respond by arching my back, momentarily witnessing the light of the saber flicker in its blade. As the blade grazes across the top of my scalp, I swiftly kick the saber out of its hand, recovering my balance by doing a backflip in order to stand on my feet. The droid quickly aims for my legs, in which I respond by leaping back and igniting one of my two lightsabers to block his swift attacks.
Despite the obvious fact on me having the upper-hand, this is when I realize the droid's attacks weren't just attempts for injuring me. As it moved, we closed in on the fallen saber. It picks it up and, with both sabers, swings them down. I block it with one until the momentum, which I underestimated, forces the grip on my saber's hilt to vanish. Despite this backtrack, I manage to move to the side with that attack and decapitate the droid's head with a slice of my other lightsaber. The droid twitches out of control with sparks from the neck's circuitry spewing out. A quick flick of my finger does the trick as I power it off.
"That was a bit faster than usual." I huff out, looking at my holo-communicator clock.
Only 10 minutes passed by.
"Great…" I growl to myself and make my way to the obstacle course when I then hear Father's voice saying my name.
"What are you here for?! Don't you see that I'm obeying this damn training command of yours?!" I bellow out. Father hesitates to answer. This is when I turn around to see him take off his mask. Father's eyes are narrowed.
"Training isn't an order." He finally tells me. I roll my eyes.
"Oh really? Is it a necessity?" I spit back, marching to him. Father raises a brow in an irritated suspicion and crosses his arms. "What is this about?"
"You know EXACTLY what I'm talkin' about! Don't you think it's kinda pointless to train for two or three f*cking HOURS with nothing to use it for?! I am gettin' real sick of this, Father!" I fire out, some saliva splattering on the top of his jacket. Father glances down at this, yet seems unfazed at my spit. He locks his eyes onto mine, eyebrows knitted downwards.
"I don't know where this is coming from, but I am not fond of this attitude of yours, Keisa."
"Well, get used to it! If I get anymore stir-crazy, you can expect this much more often!" I spit out, pushing him to the side. He then chuckles, catching my attention.
"Hmm…Well, then I guess I came here at the right time." He remarks, a slight smirk lingering on his face. I frown at him, not so sure if I like the idea of him smirking when I've been bickering at him.
He has something planned for me...Some sort of punishment...I think to myself until he exhales a long, satisfied-sounding breath out of his nose. He looks away for a second.
"You seem...on edge...But you are ready to dive into battle, right?" He asks. My eyebrows raise, yet knit an instant later.
"What are you planning…"
"To take you to Jakku." He happily replies. "We found the last piece of the map to lead us to Skywalker. I suppose you'd like to come along?" He hums sweetly, precisely in the same way he did when I was younger in the circumstance that he was offering something I wanted. I nod.
"Yes...but what's the catch here?" I ask sternly, crossing my arms.
"What? There's no "catch" with this, Keisa. Why do you suppose that?" He asks curiously. I roll my eyes, grabbing my cloak.
"Cause you're too damn overprotective of me." I reply coldly. Father doesn't answer to this for a moment. This absence catches my undivided attention while I put on my cloak. After adjusting it, I look at him, finding him affectionately smiling. He glances at me.
"...Did you ever look at that gift? The one I gave you to put inside Infinity by any chance?" He asks as he turns to the door.
"I don't see how that has to do with the situation at hand!" I reply back. He chuckles and places a hand on my shoulder.
"It'll explain why I'm so "protective" of you. I think it'd be a good time to open it." He suggests. The grip on my shoulder tightens a bit. After he loosens it, he slips on his mask, commands me gently to meet him at the Hangar E in 20 minutes before walking out, his cape gently lifting off from the floor. Stunned, I can only walk out of the room slowly. My pace though kicks up when I run to hangar C, where Infinity is docked at. By the time I arrive, I am sprinting full speed to my freighter, rocket up the hatch door and speed my way to my quarter, the location of the gift. Taking it from under my bed, I snap the lock open, lifting the cover off the box. A tiny, squeaky gasp exits my mouth.
Inside is a brown, leather folder labeled HAPPY DAYS in golden yellow with a photograph of me, as a baby, sleeping in Father's arms. He is looking at me with affectionate eyes, has a smile on his face and is brushing a strand of black hair from my face.
This is a scrapbook. Gripping the thick ends, I take the scrapbook and sit it on my lap before opening the heavy cover. When I open it up, holographic photos of me in chronological order, from three months to around seven years old shine at me, the photos and or recordings of memories located either individually or in a group on separate pages. Some of them are milestone feats, such as walking (of course), but some of the others are more genuine...me hugging Father's leg, me chasing him around with my foam lightsaber. There's even one of me puking out formula (or I think it is. There's a bottle in the holographic scene) onto Hux with Father snickering.
But...these holographic memories aren't the only things that shocks me.
On the "FIVE YEARS OLD" page, a gray piece of paper is slipped inside, showing me being lifted by Father, as stick figures, in a flowery plain. Letters, barely eligible says: "ME AND DADDY" with attempted hearts around it.
Tears stream down my face now, my vision now blurry as I repeatedly flip through the pages. Tender sobs break out of my mouth as a tingling sensation ripples through my body. Wiping away my tears, I close the scrapbook and place my hand on the front photograph, brushing my thumb on it.
"Miss Keisa." A metallic voice calls for me in a monotone voice. I snap around to see Captain Phasma standing at the bottom of the hatch door.
"Miss Keisa, Kylo Ren desires your presence at his transport." She informs me. "Shall I be an escort for you?"
"No. I'll be with him shortly." I answer in a hum. She nods and marches out, leaving me alone with only my thoughts and the photograph of me in Father's arms all those years ago. Glancing at the title of the scrapbook, my lips quiver.
"Happy days", huh…?" I crackly whisper under my breath. With a sigh, I slip the scrapbook into its box before sliding it under my quarter's bed, stand to my feet and make my way to the transport's hangar. There I see him boarding the transport, an aura of tension radiating off of him. Father turns his head to me when I come near him with him replying at my presence with a slight nod. A wave of relief bounces from his body to mine. With a tiny smirk, I take a stand at his side and for a brief moment, look at him. He looks at me.
That's when an image flashes in my mind. It's his face, under his mask.
He's staring at me with a sincere smile. He then winks.
"You ready?"
"More than you realize. Let's get a move on."