I do not own Star Wars or its characters. It will be updated with its sister story 'Spark of Resistance'. Please enjoy and leave a review.
Chapter Three
Rey tries to suppress her anticipation but finds it hard to. Two years of hard training sessions with either the Knights of Ren or the ship's automotive systems, and now she is finally training with a lightsaber. Of course, this also means that Snoke trusts her to not use it against him. Rey could not determine whether that was a good thing or not. On the one hand, it meant that Snoke didn't believe she would use this as a method to try and kill him. On the other hand, he would be correct with that assumption. She had learned early on that Snoke could see all her plans, no matter how deep she buried them. She was just lucky enough to have managed to hide yesterday's incident from him.
She enters the training room and sees Snoke waiting for her inside. He is holding a medium-sized box. Rey sees the pride beaming from Snoke's face and feels her excited anticipation dash away. Is it considered a victory if you play into your enemy's hand? She still walks toward Snoke, and he holds out the box to her. She gingerly takes it and carefully lifts the lid. Inside was a curved silver hilt.
"This once belonged to a former apprentice of the emperor, Darth Tyrannus."
Working through the discomfort of hearing the connection to her grandfather, Rey slowly grasps the lightsaber. She notices it is heavy, almost as heavy as a quarterstaff. Looking at every inch of the hilt, Rey feels disappointment at how underwhelming the lightsaber appeared. Finally, she takes a firm hold of the hilt and activates it. A steady beam of red light extended from the hilt, and Rey is instantly mesmerized. She could feel the energy thrumming down into her arm.
"I will leave you to adjust to it. Be sure to be familiarized with it within the next hour." Snoke's voice.
Rey could vaguely hear Snoke leave the room behind her. She wasn't sure how long she had been standing there, completely enamored with the weapon. She waves the saber slowly back-and-forth through the air. She could feel the air charge around the light. She now understood why lightsabers are synonymous with Jedi. This isn't just a weapon in her hand, it is pure power.
She grabs her training helmet and put it on. She flips the visor down and starts her drills. It is exhilarating, handling such power. She almost stumbles as feels something coming through the Force. She continues to practice as the feeling kept coming closer. She waits until the feeling was right next to her, then she spun on her foot and struck.
Ben could feel his mind clearing while he practiced lightsaber forms. To him, this seemed to do a better job of putting him at ease than meditating. He thought over his conversation with his uncle and the answers Luke provided. According to Luke, it is possible to Force project over a large distance if there was a strong connection. Following that theory, that meant Ben had some sort of strong connection with that girl. But no matter how hard he tries he cannot think of who that girl was or what she means to him. Maybe he could get more details from that text Luke was eyeing at earlier.
Suddenly he feels something coming through the Force again. He stops his drills and waits for something to happen. The feeling seems all-encompassing, as it is always against his back no matter which way he turns. It was getting closer, whatever it is. He suddenly spun on his heel to block a strike of another lightsaber. The tip of the intense red beam of light is practically a hairsbreadth away from his face. Managing to look beyond the saber, Ben recognizes its holder's form as last night's visitor. She cocks her head to the side and smiles maliciously.
"Well if it isn't yesterday's assassin. I was wondering if you were going to show up again." She comments.
We use our lightsabers to push away from each other. She has the visor down on her helmet so Ben can't see her eyes, but he can feel her studying him. She takes a step to the side and starts to circle him. She keeps her saber pointing to the ground, while Ben keeps his on guard. He notices that her lightsaber is too long for a person of her size. How old is she anyway?
"What are you?" She asks.
"An initiate, like you." He replies.
"No! Are you real, or are you a conjuration meant to test me?" She clarifies.
"You can't tell if I'm real?" Ben probes.
"No, though I am fairly positive killing you will clear up all my frustrations." She replies.
She swings down at him, which he counters with a parry. The counter pushes her back on one foot and Ben steps forward in pursuit. The girl uses her momentum to pirouette and then thrust forward. Ben just barely dodges her and notices the girl quickly shifting her stance to pursue him. She's fast. The fight continues with Ben being strongly defensive to the girl's fast offensive. Ben realizes that if she were using an appropriate lightsaber, he would have been dead many times over already. Seeing an opening to strike, Ben quickly lunges forward. The girl ducks and uses her leg to sweep out his front leg. Ben crashes to the ground onto his back, his thumb accidently turning off his saber.
"I'll admit, you've got a very solid defensive form." The girl comments, striding towards him. "But one thing to remember about offensive fighting, never over-reach your stance."
The girl stops right next to him and raises her saber. Ben watches her flip the saber to point the tip at him. He almost wishes he could see her eyes and briefly wondered if they were cold, or if they burned like last time. The girl moved to thrust, and Ben closed his eyes and braced himself. Seconds passed and nothing happened. Opening one eye, he saw nothing. Looking around, Ben saw nothing to indicate that he wasn't alone. Disappeared again. But how? And why? Picking himself and his saber off the ground, Ben decides to go see if he could read his uncle's texts.
Something has upset her. Snoke came to this realization after ten minutes of watching his apprentice fight against the Knights of Ren. She was being more aggressive than usual. It was somewhat nice to see, but it was making her reckless. Three times, a knight has managed to strike her. Eventually he puts the session to a halt.
"Tell me child, what is troubling you?" He demands.
"It is none of your concern." She retorts, walking away.
"When you become reckless enough to make mistakes, I make it my concern." Snoke admonishes.
"I am being trained to take up where my grandfather was stopped and subject this entire galaxy under one rule, my rule. When that day comes, do you honestly think that I will listen to anything you have to say, concerning or otherwise?" She subtly threatens.
How dare she. Snoke stops the girl in her tracks and slowly strides towards her. He smiles at the slight tremor of fear he can detect.
"Your arrogance will your undoing, child." Snoke declares, stopping directly in front of her and grabbing her face. "Being the Emperor's heir, does not make you any less expendable than a stormtrooper."
He threw her into the ground. Panting as she lifts herself off the floor, he relishes the feeling of fear and hopelessness washing off her. She walks away once more, and he lets her. He admires her small, sunken form. She can bluster all she wants, but she will always be a lonely little girl.
Luke found himself in an elevator, although he couldn't remember how or why. He felt his body sinking, so he could assume he is descending to somewhere. The elevator comes to a stop and the doors open, revealing a dimly lit room. Luke steps out of the elevator certain he knows where he is. He turns around and recognizes the throne room from the second Death Star. Emperor Palpatine is sitting in his throne in front of Luke, Darth Vader standing left of the emperor. Both Vader's and Palpatine's shadows loom unnaturally in front of them. Two shapes rise from the shadows. Vader's shadow melts away, revealing the shape to be Ben, kneeling in front of Palpatine's shadow. Out of Palpatine's shadow came the arms of a child. They wrap themselves around Ben's shoulders as the rest of the shadow melts away. Luke cannot see more of the child as it is mostly hidden behind Ben's frame. All Luke can see so far is a head of dark hair resting on Ben's shoulder. The child lifts its head and Luke can see a pair of hazel eyes burning into him. The child opens its mouth, and although no sound comes out, Luke trembles at what it says. He's mine now.
Luke wakes with a gasp. He wants to believe what he saw was just a nightmare brought on by stress, but he knows otherwise. He knows it's a vision of the future, but how far? A knock on the door startles Luke out of his thoughts. Luke rushes to the door and panics at the sight of Ben.
"What are you doing here Ben?" Luke asks as calmly as he can.
"I was hoping to go over some of the new text-." Ben starts.
"Ben focus on completing the basics first. At the rate you're going, you won't be allowed to leave this planet or the academy anytime soon!" Luke snaps. He sees Ben flinch away.
"Forgive me Master. I'm sorry to have disturbed you, I'll go back to my studies now." Ben mumbles.
Luke closes the door with force, then sags against. Perhaps he was being harsh on the boy, but with that vision . . . No, he cannot fail his sister. Not when she is so desperate for him to keep her son safe. He cannot allow that vision to pass. Although, deep within Luke, there is a feeling that he is already too late.
