Chapter 15 – Unexpected Student
I'm just going to give her another warning, Kylo thought. Just going to say it and get out of there. I'll have plenty of time to meet Finn and Sal by the Hanger and then we'll leave. Of course, if she wanted to come too then… No, she won't want to leave her precious resistance. She just needs to accept the truth. They're not who she thinks they are.
"Where is Rey?" Kylo asked the first person he found in the hallway. They stared at him in shock for a few seconds, then responded in confusion. "Where's Luke?" He rephrased, remembering what she said about getting a lesson from him.
The person nodded in recognition. "Try room E-120, he's been there all morning."
E-120, this is the west wing, and I could swear I felt him when I ran into Rey, Kylo thought. After searching some more, and receiving no better answers, he finally decided to go look in the east wing when it was approaching the next hour.
Rey was waiting outside of room 120. "Hey," she greeted Kylo when she saw him. "I told your mom what you told me, and she's gonna talk to you later about it."
This made Kylo panic a little bit until he remembered he told her about Ake's Tavern too. "Oh, Alright."
The door to the nearby office opened. "Ben!" Luke looked surprised to see his nephew. "Rey, I'm sorry if I kept you waiting."
"No, I was early, and didn't want to interrupt you," Rey said to Luke. Then she turned back to Kylo. "And Ben,thank you again for sharing about Lothal. It's the best lead we've got." She walked past Luke and into the room.
Kylo followed her with his eyes, then kept staring into the room. He didn't even think to correct her on his name.
After a couple of seconds Luke spoke up. "We're going to have a little lesson. Do you want to join us?"
Kylo looked down at his Uncle, then looked away.
"Alright then," Luke started to walk inside. Suddenly Kylo turned and pushed past him into the room. Rey smiled at him. "Alright then," Luke repeated. He turned to shut the door. Outside the room was a blond force ghost who gave Luke a thumbs up. Luke rolled his eyes and shut the door while Anakin laughed at him.
Inside the room, Luke hesitated a moment. He did not expect Ben to join them. In fact, Luke only offered because he expected Ben to refuse. "I thought we'd start with basic meditation, since I have no idea what training you've had, Rey. And Ben. It's uh, been a while." Luke started his lesson by sitting on the already cleared floor. Rey and Ben followed him down.
After leading them with surprisingly little coaching through the basics of Meditation, Luke stopped to praise his student. "You've done very well. Rey, I almost can't believe Palpat… Palpy was your trainer. Now that we've done that, we can move on to some saber training, if you'd like? Have you done any training with a lightsaber before?"
"No. There really aren't any kyber crystals on Jakku. But I know all about their construction, if the illustrations Palpy drew are accurate. Which they usually are," Rey answered.
Luke nodded. "I have a few practice sabers you can borrow. We'll go down to the Resistance training room where they have more space. Go ahead, I'll meet you there."
Luke watched Ben and Rey make their way out of his space. Luke thought about how much Ben had changed since he knew him. He was quieter and moodier. Which wasn't that surprising. He definitely had a stronger dark side leaning. Luke supposed that the best he could do now would be to train Ben to battle it. It would be a constant struggle. That was going to take some time, and would only be effective if the boy wanted to fight it. Luke still wasn't sure Ben wanted to leave the dark behind.
But there was something else different too. When Ben and Rey were meditating, their force-presences seemed to bleed through to each other. Almost to a point where Luke considered shaking them out of it, and insisting they were doing it wrong. If Luke were honest, the reason he didn't interrupt them was because he also sensed a stability in his nephew then that he hadn't felt before.
To say that Ben had been a difficult child would be putting it lightly. His moods always were an extreme and there was always something he was mourning. If his parents hadn't sent him away, or if they'd of found a way to send him for training that the boy didn't feel was a rejection, Luke supposed it would've been different. But from the stories Leia told him, he had assumed it was Ben's normal mood, and Luke thought he could make a difference. His mistake.
Truth was, it had been several years since he had seen Ben. Luke had been so busy being a Jedi, that he'd rather neglected his family connections. How could he pretend to know what was normal for Ben.
On his way out Kylo glanced at Rey. "What I said before, about the night the temple burned down, forget it."
Rey stopped walking in the hallway. Her eyes squinted in confusion."Oh, alright."
Kylo had resolved to a decision while meditating. He wasn't going to leave it up to chance that Rey wouldn't end up like- like Ben had. He'd have to stay and keep an eye on the old fool. Even though that meant letting Finn and Sal down. He'd just have to make it up to them later.
Before they got very far, Finn called out to him. "Kylo, Kylo." He and Sal came running up.
"Go ahead," Kylo said to Rey. He turned back to Finn and Sal.
"We were worried when you didn't show. But…," Finn stammered out.
"I won't be leaving…" Kylo said.
At the same time Finn said, "We don't want to go…"
After taking a second to listen, Sal continued. "It seems we are on the same page then." Kylo looked shocked at the two of them, leading Sal to explain. "We like how they treat us here. It's different from The First Order. From everyone but you."
His words made Kylo feel proud, yet he wasn't sure where they were coming from. How did I treat them differently than any other First Order officer? Kylo could sense Sal was being more than just kind in his choice of words. He meant it. "Thank you," Kylo nodded, and turned to join Rey.
Luke left his meditation space and went to the training room via a short-cut through another two rooms. When Luke arrived on D'Qar and learned his wayward nephew was also present, he thought it best to study the base plans. He'd learned a few extra shortcuts and alternate routes just in case he needed to avoid a conflict that he didn't have the heart to see to it's finish.
When he got there, Rey was entering as well. "Where is-" Luke didn't finish the sentence.
"Outside, he stopped to talk to someone," Rey answered.
"We may as well get started then." Luke suspected Ben had left and honestly felt relieved. He led Rey over to a ring set up for hand to hand combat training with mats and a flexi rope boundary. He handed Rey a practice saber and pulled down the flexi rope boundary for her to step over and into the ring.
Just as Luke put his hand onto Rey's back to help her he felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise. Turning, as Luke suspected, he saw Ben glaring at him. The stability he'd felt earlier seemed to have vanished as unexpectedly as it appeared. Luke climbed up into the ring after Rey, resigning to the fact that Ben would soon follow.
Once Ben climbed into the ring, Luke held out a second practice saber.
"I have one," Ben breathed out.
Luke looked down at the saber with distaste, then up, but his eyes skidded away from Ben's intensity. "Okay. This is a practice round." He enunciated for Ben's benefit. "Ben, I'm going to demonstrate for Rey the forms, you'll play my opponent. Rey, pay close attention to where I put my feet and how I move my upper body."
For a second Luke thought Ben was going to refuse, or back out entirely. He glared down at Luke, and his breathing increased. But then he seemed to sense Rey watching him and he moved to take up the starting position. Neither party bothered to set their sabers to practice mode. Neither party trusted their opponent to do the same.
Both parties activated their sabers. As Luke looked out at Ben's blood red saber he was brought back to other times when he faced another opponent with a similar hued blade. Those were fights to the death, and Luke's brain responded with adrenaline to match. Then Luke activated his saber, and he could hear his opponent gasp and feel fear radiating off him. In a battle this was a good thing, so Luke swung his blade, looking up into the eyes as his opponent parried, to find the scared eyes of his nephew looking down at him. Luke pulled back and took a moment to breathe slowly. He remembered he had a student to teach and he felt ashamed. Ben responded in kind. His wrist holding the still lit saber relaxed a bit.
"Are you ready?" Luke asked after several moments. Ben nodded and Luke resumed the correct posture again. Ben and Luke exchanged several strikes and parries, while Rey watched them closely.
After several minutes of demonstrating, Luke turned to Rey. "Now, It's your turn. Come forward." Rey stepped up, and attempted a starting position. "No, put your feet closer together, like this." He demonstrated again.
Ben deactivated his saber and looked closely to study her form. The closeness of his gaze made Luke feel slightly uncomfortable, and he cleared his throat.
"Separate your feet a bit," Ben suggested. Rey returned to her original position. "It fits her body size better." Luke found he couldn't argue against it, as he watched her he suspected his nephew was right.
Luke set his saber to practice mode. Ben stepped past him and took the opponent position. Before he could move to protest, Rey moved to strike and Ben parried. Then Ben struck and Rey parried. As they went back and forth, Ben increased the speed and power behind his strikes, and Rey matched them.
"I thought you hadn't done saber training before!" Luke exclaimed from the side.
"Not with real sabers, or anything as fancy as this, but we had sticks a plenty on Jakku," Rey responded.
Ben smiled and spun his body to try a new move several steps ahead of the ones they were using before. Luke winced, but Rey pulled her saber around to parry with surprising speed. They continued their battle with increasing skill. At one point Ben struck at Rey and Luke recognized the move. Rey pulled up to parry his move and didn't see Ben swing his saber around to whack her side.
Luke shut his eyes. Unable to watch or interfere. The move was too quick.
"Oww," Rey cried.
Luke opened his eyes to see Ben pull back. His saber had just bounced off her ribs. It was on practice mode. Luke breathed a sigh of relief.
Then Rey pulled up her saber to continue the match. She seemed to learn from her opponent and a couple of steps later, when Ben tried the same move, she was able to avoid his strike with a parry and a sidestep.
Ben deactivated his saber with a smile. "Nice."
"I learn quick, Palpy always said." Rey looked back to Luke.
"You certainly do," Luke agreed. "That's enough for today. There are showers, I believe past there." He pointed towards a doorway.
"Thanks for the lesson, Master Luke." Rey jumped up and ran the direction he'd pointed. Ben and Luke stared at each other a moment longer before they both headed the same way. Luke wasn't going to trust Ben to suddenly reform his ways, and he knew no evil was below a darksider.
Hello,
I struggled with this chapter at first, but persevered and I am really proud of what I've got.
Now, I forget if I mentioned this earlier or not, but I'll do so again just in case. I remember reading somewhere online a very well put together argument that Luke Skywalker displayed many of the symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (or PTSD) in The Last Jedi. I also think there's some depression symptoms in there too. I know the movies got a lot of flack about the way Luke was portrayed.
It is my belief that there is no problem with portraying a fan favorite and heroic character as having mental health issues... As long as you give them a healing arch. Without such arch the story often feels incomplete. This is what I think the Canon Star Wars story was lacking, and I intend to give him a healing arch.
In fact, having these struggles does not counter Luke's heroism in any way. In fact it lends to it. It shows that standing up against your dark side father, and an evil Sith lord, almost being killed by them, was not so easy peasy lemon squeezy.