Aola Freeta-Freeykaa was a human female despite having a Twi'lek name.
She pulled a glass off the counter with her mind and brought it to her hand. She took a sip of the sweet juice, using the force to keep the cup afloat above her hand. She enjoyed her drink, twirling it around just above her palm.
A fellow Jedi apprentice-Sisseri Deo-knocked it aside, spilling its contents.
"Stop playing around Aola. That's not how you are supposed to use the force."
She used the force to grab the liquid before it hit the floor, called another cup towards her and made it explode. She sent another rocketing into the ceiling sending a shower of green liquid flying while at the same time, letting the blue liquid from her first cup fly down on the apprentice who offended her.
Aola looked at group of apprentices talking among each other, but their eyes were trained on her. She called their light-sabers out of their holsters, grinning when they looked shocked.
"Oops."
She disassembled their training light-sabers with ease, sending the parts scattering across the room.
"My light-saber-"
"Aola, how could-"
"Go away-"
"Go and be with your Astromech droid! It's the only friend you have besides Scout and Lena-"
The apprentices yelled one after the next, wiping themselves the best they could and trying to gather all of their parts for their training light-sabers.
"His name is Arto you morons, and I bet he could put a light-saber back together faster than any of you can combined!"
Aola stuck her tongue out and sprinted away, not making another retort. She shouldn't have given the apprentices the time of her day, but her trigger had been pressed. Everybody knew she didn't like sharing her food and didn't like people eyeballing it.
She heard the Jedi Masters and Jedi Knights talk together in low voices whenever she was around. She knew what her fellow peers thought about her and her attachment. About her emotion. About her aggression.
One didn't have to be very smart, and Aola was smart, and perceptive, to know what they thought of it.
She seen the other apprentices rolling their eyes at her, or laughing, and worst of all, calling her a slave to her emotions.
Even when she was doing way better than all of the kids in her classes and had to be put in classes with the older kids-how she met Scout and Lena in the first place-those few kids would still poke at her even when they lost.
Petty groups of talkers...
Stupid robotic Jedi Masters...
Arto rushed up to her once she got in her room, beeping and whistling.
"They always call me a slave, Arto. I wish my Master was still alive, I miss him. I wouldn't have to be here in this stupid Temple with those stupid and mean kids always poking at me because I am better than they are, we could be in a star-fighter going into hyperspace right now instead of sitting in here."
Arto made a sequence of trills and whistles.
"They don't understand me or maybe I don't understand them...They're always picking fights with me and stupid Deo is always trying to spill my juice!" Aola fumed.
Arto let out a series of trills and beeps.
"You're right. Scout and Lena are nice. They're both my friends. Master did understand. If it weren't for you and those two...I would be alone right now."
Arto whistled.
Her first Master had been a Zabrak male and a fierce duelist favoring Ataru, Djem So, and the forbidden Juyo. Almost a year into her apprenticeship he had been shot down in a space battle just near the Outer Rim.
She had been right there with him flying...
One second he was there...
The next he was just a fireball in space...
He had taken her on missions right away, wasting little time. He began training her in combat. She was strong, and he would sharpen her. Her whetstone would be missions, making her skills sharper with his special training.
They were often in battles-as he said she would be far ahead of all of her peers due to the fact she had actual combat experience.
And, that was true-even Sisseri Deo couldn't handle her.
Months before he died in battle, he bought her the precious R2-D2 she always kept at her side as part of her birthday celebration.
"You are strong little one, but it is not good for us to be alone no matter how strong we are. That is why you are my Padawan and I am your Master. We are one in the same like a moon orbiting a world. We usually wait until the you turn thirteen to do this sort of thing, but we are in a war. I may not be alive tomorrow and you may not be alive to see thirteen. We will see battle. If I am to pass in service to the Republic and Jedi Order, I want you to travel with this R2-D2. They are good Astromech Droids and can have a lot of upgrades and updates. They tend to develop a headstrong personality if their memory isn't wiped, but I think you won't do such a thing."
His voice was always strong and its bass brought her a sense of calm and relief, even in battle.
He had brought Arto into her room shortly after he said those words, grinning quite wide when she rushed the Astromech and latched onto it.
They had been through so many battles and on so many adventures since then.
Now, it was all she had left of her Master.
If her whole life hadn't been a struggle her Master's death would have taken everything out of her. It should have broken her, but what really stabbed her was when her second Master, a female Twi'lek, disowned her two months into that apprenticeship expressing that she was too emotional and quick to jump.
She had a hard time letting go and liked being more aggressive than passive in combat.
Because she didn't want to wipe her Arto's memory was the first reason her second Master called it quits.
The second reason had been, that because she favored aggression and desired to advance quickly. That she found Soresu cowardly, useless, and a waste of time.
The third reason had been, apparently, she could not understand the struggles her fellow peers went through learning the same things she did slower, because she picked things up at a preternatural rate.
The fourth reason was because she left the Masters no choice but to put her with the older kids so the younger ones didn't get hurt.
The fifth reason was because she couldn't understand nor sympathize with the child-like clumsiness peers her age and older went through learning techniques that would only take her a couple of tries to understand.
It sounded a lot like her second Master said this one is too advanced for me, too headstrong, and too independent.
I don't want her.
She was out of chances. This was her last chance. She was strong in the force. Strong enough to make an impression on Jedi talent scouts when she was a child, strong enough to know they had come to get her from that horrible world.
Even a Master once said that the Jedi scout was called to her through the force. Her family had been poor, her biological parents were sold as slaves, and her surrogate parents who were also poor, had begged the Jedi to take her away from a life of slavery.
She remembered it all and it haunted her.
She had only been four when she was taken to the Temple, but she remembered her mother and father. She remembered her surrogate mother and father being sold, and her being sold with them.
Trapped in slavery.
Trapped in darkness.
Aola rubbed the scar on her cheek.
A reminder of her past.
A past that put her on a really bad and rough start, according to some Jedi Masters.
While most of her peers were brought in as infants, she had been brought in at four, and while still young, she had suffered deeply in those four short years.
She had this one chance to do some serious good. She had to free her family. She had to free people in similar situations. She had to get strong enough to protect people from falling into those sinkholes that she suffered.
She had to get strong enough to put an end to it.
But, she wasn't wanted because she was too attached.
She would never let someone or something precious to her just drift out of her life.
Arto made another series of beeps and whistles, much higher than before, moving towards her bed.
She put her hand on his dome.
"You're right. I can win this and show them all. I also have a few secret moves I've been working on in private."
But the fact remained she was an orphan.
A young, but aging apprentice with no Master anymore.
With no Master willing to take her.
The only way she could become a Jedi Knight was to be made a Padawan, take on missions, be given a chance to prove that she could make a difference in the war, and eventually pass the Trials.
And the only way to do that was to gain the Jedi's trust.
But, it was almost impossible.
She drove herself to the top of her classes, she was always number one. She tried to advance rapidly so she could train with the older kids, and she did, all of her classes were with kids three or five years her senior in age.
She went through her katas and worked out until she was covered in sweat. She studied the advanced moves and techniques. She studied the esoteric techniques. She went nights without sleep, studying star maps, star-ship schematics, and hyperspace coordination before her aching eyes finally shut on their own.
She studied unarmed combat, Climbing and Ropework, Knot Tying, the Art of Movement, hyperdrive theory, star-ship diagnostics, advanced math, advanced science, star-ship technology, political lectures, holocron construction, comm installation tech, force classes, light-saber technique, botany, biology, military strategy, and she even dealt with the most boring of all...
Galactic History.
It couldn't all be for nothing.
She extended her right arm, calling her light-saber to her hand, and examined it. Just a little over two years old since it was assembled. As her Master had instructed, she had completed it alone on the planet of Ossus after searching for what she needed and going into a deep meditation on the world.
He had been kind enough to provide his light-saber to serve as a model.
She always did admire the rustic expertise that had gone into fashioning the robust, powerfully ridged hilt of her Master's light-saber.
But, she preferred a weapon that was more sleek and more elegant.
A weapon that didn't require a deathly grip, but a loose grip, one held in the fingers and turned with the wrists, using the whole body to attack.
There was the problem that his hands were too large to duplicate the loose grip she always favored with her own light-saber. Her Master's hands required that the grip be thicker and longer to accommodate his height, he also had ballast pieces of steel fitted with harsh gripping on the hilt just to ensure he never lost it in combat.
If she did the same thing the end result would be an inelegant, brutal, and cumbersome weapon.
Determined to find a balance that suited her, she fashioned a deep silver version of the light-saber with a Phrik hilt, gently curved, and inlaid with smooth hand-grip. She utilized a high-output diatium power cell, an Etaan crystal, an Eralem crystal, and a Phond crystal in combination.
This would give her a superior, royal blue blade that resonated. It would thrum with each movement. A blade that burned fiercely and would give a loud crack whenever it was clashed with another blade. It would cause other blades to bounce off her own, and would absorb blaster bolts, deflecting them with thrice the lethal force.
She kept things simple by adding forward adjustment knobs and no activation button. Everything from the emitter to hilt was sleek and flexible, but distinctly durable just like her Master's own weapon in nature.
It would be activated and controlled by her use of the force.
Aola nodded with pride.
Her Master had approved, even if it was too antique for his taste.
She loved how it resonated when she activated it. Loved its precise movements, the way it would crack whenever it touched something, and she may be an emotional Jedi apprentice, but she tried her best, and even if Yoda wanted to take her light-saber she would bite his hand.
Hopefully the matches would all be open combat, no holds barred, with sparring to continue until one person surrendered by tapping the floor three times or took three burns from the training light-sabers, in her case, her own light-saber, which would be dialed to the lowest power setting.
Even at low power a cut from a training light-saber and real light-saber were no joke. The touch of the blade was shockingly painful, it seared the nerves and bunched the body into a huge knot. They would leave red welts that took days to heal, cause deep bruising on the bone, and even cause contusions.
Aola knew the pain well. She had sparred with her Master for hours and he made it a point to strike her over and over. Pain could be distracting if one didn't train for it, he reasoned. Pain had to be endured and pushed through, he insisted.
Don't leave yourself open, he would joke.
Every day for the last two months she had gone to her private spot in the gardens or one of the isolated training chambers and struck herself on the flanks, shoulders, arms, wrists, legs, fingers, ankles, toes, stomach, neck, and even chest with her own light-saber at low power.
Even if she surmised she would take down her competition with a thrust to the throat, what would be enough to end the match completely despite not making them tap three times or striking them three times. With her saber it would end the bout and keep them out of commission.
Saliva would be oozing out of their mouth as their body was wracked with the convulsion of nerves.
Pain wouldn't make her lose focus.
She couldn't afford to lose.
"Hey, Aola...Me and you, training room now. Have your Astromech go meet your two friends."
Aola turned towards the source of the voice, looking up at Sisseri Deo.
"Deo...Moving quieter today?"
He jabbed a thumb at his face. "You threw juice on me."
"Lead the way, Deo."
Aola could see its green gleam with her eyes, but used the force to probe for the right moment to sidestep.
The startling heat of her opponent's training light-saber blade slashed to her side, then swept into his vision, nearly burning her.
Because she was short and petite for a ten, almost eleven year-old, many would assume that her foe would have the advantage in battle. But, strength and size could only do so much. One needed speed and agility. Muscle memory. One needed to be able to move.
Nor did strength and size have any effect on the force, that she had yet to master.
She listened intently to the sound of her foe's light-saber, his breathing, the scrape of his boot against the floor and the ruffle of his clothing.
Such sounds always echoed loudly in the vaulted sparring chambers.
Every sound was an opening.
A possible telegraph.
She raised her weapon, clipping the offending blade, and somersaulted to the right, splitting into a cartwheel as her opponent's blade slammed down into the floor where she had previously been.
Aola lunged back once she recovered, giving herself some distance. She heard the hum of the light-saber as her foe chased after her, arcing a hasty strike motivated by irritation and fatigue.
Good.
Sweat trickled into her eyes.
Every part of her resonated with the force.
It moved through her, giving her everything she could ever need, and everything she could ever want. She widened her stance, slamming her left foot behind her, slammed the right foot forward, grounded her stance, and took her light-saber in a two hand grip.
Her foe leaned forward, light-saber burning down towards her face. Aola simply leaned forward, bypassing the attack by a less than a fraction, and thrust her light-saber up into her foe's neck, sending him dropping to the floor.
"Raagggh!"
Sissieri Deo choked in pain, clutching at his neck, wiping spit from from his mouth as it oozed out against his will.
If she had been using her light-saber at full power, it would have been a killing blow without a doubt. But, the touch of a blade a low power only gave the nerves something to jump at, and something for the healers to tend to, but it was still quite a jolt depending on where one was struck.
"That was luck! I bet you can't hit me again!"
Aola had been lost in her own focus, but she was coming out of it now. She recognized the voice of her opponent Sisseri Deo.
Unlike Aola, Sisseri Deo was almost fifth-teen and stood over seven feet tall already. He was one of the oldest, tallest, biggest, and physically strongest Jedi apprentices in the Temple.
Like Aola, Sisseri Deo was aspiring to be a Jedi Knight.
He was trying to calm himself from the choking spasm that wracked him at the moment, due to the well timed thrust to his throat on her part.
"Look at you big and tall, but so clumsy. Do not forget that I have the center of gravity." Aola waved her blade at him.
Every student at the Temple had his or her own weaknesses.
She knew her own too well.
Every single day, she struggled to control her rage, sadness, and her fear. She had to struggle to let go of her first Master, forget her second Master, and remind herself that she should not be so certain of her skills.
Deo struggled with his own anger that could quickly ignite into hot rage. He struggled with his own arrogance that would make Masters punish him. He usually kept his temper well under control, letting it out during sparring sessions with the Masters where he could get whacked down, but today he was letting loose on her.
He held grudges.
This was one of them.
A year ago, she beaten him in a match, whacking him on the side of the face. It had not been an accident on her part. The year before that she slashed him across the length of his back when she used Falling Leaf to completely bypass his linear Djem So charge.
Deo had a lot of pride, an image, something to keep up, and the arrogance of his species was very apparent in him. And, the fact she totally bypassed him and left a scorch mark down his entire spine didn't sit well with him.
The teasing of the other students had gotten under his skin.
He then called her a slave to attachment and mentioned her Master being killed in battle.
The slave to attachment stuck, but nobody said anything about her first Zabrak Master.
Except Deo, of course.
Now, she had covered him in sticky juice in front of everyone.
He must have been so fuming mad the steam he generated dried off the liquid, because she couldn't see any on his person.
Come on, you slave." Deo sneered. "Let's see if you can win again!"
"Fine by me. Don't go crying and making up stories to the nurses and Knight Offee to get me in trouble if I beat you bad."
Deo burned with anger and embarrassment. He snarled. "Same goes to you, runt. Don't go limping around."
"Don't go hanging your fat and swollen head."
Aola could sense the force flowing deep within her. She could feel the dark ripples of anger in Sisseri, like boulders being thrown onto a placid river.
She whirled into a defensive velocity as Deo lunged in, thrusting and stabbing. His Djem So was rough, but the style itself was also rough. Only Anakin Skywalker and Aalya Secura were truly refined and graceful in the style.
They were masters of the style.
Everyone else tended to take aspects of the brutish style and apply it to their own repertoire.
She turned aside his first two blows easily, using the side of her blade to skim them off, swung up, using the top portion of her blade to send his blade bouncing off like it had struck a force-field on his third stroke.
She moved ahead towards his flank, but shifted at the last second, forcing him to jump high to avoid her arc aimed for his shoulder.
He landed behind a pillar, and with a violent burst of speed Aola was already on his flank, closing the distance in a heartbeat.
"Too slow. You're too big to be running away in the first place."
Their blades skimmed and battered together, sparking, hissing, nearly exploding. The air charged with power and bursts of emotion, clogged from the intensity of their clash of wills. They fought in a sporadic, wild orbit of blades.
Aola sidestepped or swayed away from every stroke and deflected the power blows.
She didn't press in.
He won't goad me. He wants to overwhelm me, use his body more than anything. I'll tire out his muscles, gas out his lungs, makes his legs jello, and this time...
Aola took a deep breath, centering and gathering her stamina. Sweat was drenching her clothes, her muscles ached, her bones ached, but the force remained strong with her.
Deo was moving slower and slower. Aola didn't press herself back to evade, instead she simply turned her body a few degrees.
Deo finally gave up when he missed four strokes, all aimed for her head.
"You can't hit me on the head."
"Stay still and fight. You're just sitting there shaking your hips."
Aola distanced herself with half of a step, keeping her hilt gripped in both hands.
Deo was almost doubled over, panting from his frustration more than his overall exertion. His glare told her that she had not won his respect nor his acknowledgement. His demeanor also told her that his greatest strength was his greatest flaw-the Masters should have made him practice Makashi instead of Djem So.
But, that was too outdated.
It didn't favor Deo's physical stature.
Despite his physical stature and training in Djem So, the Firrerreo had no real experience in long, drawn out battles. He had no experience in real battles. None of the other apprentices save for a few, had ever lasted long enough to truly push him, her being one of them.
Nobody really wanted to go against him, even in training exercises, because he was so tall and muscular, but she had a reputation for beating out the older, bigger apprentices.
He had never left the Temple to be on a war zone like she had with her Master.
He was used to playing as her first Master had amusingly put it.
Deo had no idea what it was like to have someone, or a droid, running towards him with nothing but murderous intent.
His strikes became less abrasive, less cutting, the swings didn't wind up, his footwork got even sloppier, and his transitions weren't fluid. His linear charge began to slow, but refusing to quit, he didn't slow to a crawl in the mad trek forward.
Aola angled her blade so that the tip skimmed against the very edge of her his blade, turning aside the chopping strike aimed for shoulder, sending it harmlessly humming past her flank while she spun half a circle so she could face him.
With a start, she jumped back.
The Firrerreo snarled in fury, glaring at the smaller girl.
"You're a slave to your emotions!"
"Coo ya maya stupa! Kee baatu baatu!"
She violently sped forward closing the distance faster than her foe could even comprehend, impacts cracked the floor until there was only pure acceleration and a melee of furious attacks. Deo tried to block the attacks, tried to track her, but she was too fast, the attacks were too quick and he was trying to track them one by one.
Then he called on the force, but he was fatigued, frustrated, and annoyed. It only served to tire him more and dull his connection to the force.
Aola struck him over and over, moving around, over, and under his blade.
She tested the waters and moved herself back, angling her blade just a little, rolling her wrist, worked in, then over, and...
Ah!
Her blade met his wrist with a loud crack, as she had expected, hoped, and now he was careless on top of angry.
He nearly dropped his weapon.
Aola moved forward, calling on the force, peeling herself through the space and time between them, smacking the chamber floor with impacts. Deo tried to fight back again, but fell back, rolling, flailing, finally flipping altogether.
His training light-saber switched off, rocketing across the floor.
Aola slammed her blade into the floor, but Deo managed to throw himself away by a few inches, and called his light-saber back to his hand.
He barely switched on his training light-saber when the crash of sparks jolted his eyes.
With each exchange Aola prodded the force, testing and searching for the interstice of his offense, defense, cadence, and the very foundation of his technique. The light split between. Deo whirled his blade, lunging, and dhe snapped her blade forward, body planted, tip catching Deo cleanly on the throat again.
The large apprentice flew back into the wall, hitting it with a thunderous thud before he hit the floor just as hard choking and spitting.
"You're nothing but vapebait." Deo sputtered out after a few minutes.
It was the worst thing anyone could possibly say to a pilot...As to suggest that her piloting skills were so terrible she would just make a good shooting target.
Aola grinned.
"Took you a while there. Deo, I am sure you are going to be a horrible moisture boy, nevermind being a farmer. Lurdo."
It was the worst kind of insult to suggest that his skills were so minuscule that he would be a bumbling buffoon, without a single clue as to how to farm, being too headstrong, and lacking common sense to the point he shouldn't be farming at all, let alone be allowed in the Agricultural Corps.
To top it off she called him a loser in Ewokese.
"Moisture boy."
Aola pointed her blade at him, laughing.
"Moisture boy."
"Shut up."
"Make me, moisture boy."
He charged her, diving high overhead, hollering, eyes wide, his training light-saber held high.
Aola waited until he powered down with his stroke, clipped it, swept a full three hundred and sixty degrees, angling her own blade up to meet the next barrage.
Blades crashed and smashed in bursts of sparks.
By the time they both finally left the training room they were were burned, bloodied, and bruised from the match.
Neither had won.
Both had lost.
As Aola headed to her room to bandage herself up and apply ointment to the wounds, Deo went to the Halls of Healing, where the few Jedi healers practiced their arts.
He marched in, clothes singed, sliced, and cut from the low power settings set on the light-sabers.
He too had burns on his head and face.
Blood ran down his nose.
Barriss looked at him, clearly concerned. "What happened?"
Deo scowled, moving towards a table.
"It's nothing to worry about. Just had a match with Aola. It was only a sparring match so who cares? It's no big deal...I called her vapebait and she called me moisture boy."
Barriss looked at him, then looked to the nearest healer.
"Notify the Masters that Aola and Deo have been at it again."