Here's chapter two. I'll probably upload chapter 3 right pretty soon afterwards so that the story here will be all caught up with the ao3 version. Then the new chapter on Monday can be released simultaneously on ffn and ao3.
Review responses
-DarklighterUSA: Thank you for being the first reviewer. To answer your query, Luke's gonna fall to the darkside and be a generally immoral person, but he will still actually have morals. Luke grew up on Tatooine after all, so his attitude towards violence is kind of reflected in that. Also, Luke's first introduction to the force in general is with the dark side. Dooku, however, will end up as a slightly better person by the end of this even if he remains a sith lord.
It turns out that Luke's job was much simpler than he had originally thought.
The first time that he'd taken a good look at the B1 semantics, he'd spat out the caf he had been delivered with breakfast.
"What utter osik!"
He'd wasted no time in reworking the entire droid to optimize its true capabilities.
"Targeting, subpar. Mobility, next to none. Shoddy workmanship. Material: literal garbage. And the Separatists wonder why things don't go their way!"
Shaking his head, Luke started working on a more mobile design for the crappy droid. He'd been bent over his desk, absently sipping the cups that were pressed into his hand for so long that he'd lost track of time. He lifted the finished schematic up and brushed aside the many (far too many) mugs of since disappeared caf aside.
Time crept up on him, and now it was now time to submit this for review and start on the prototype. It was at this point that Luke was informed that Count Dooku was away from the estate at the moment and had left specific instructions that Luke be provided for in whatever he required to keep doing his job.
"Master Luke, we believe a shower and some food might do you some good," the short servant, whom Luke had pulled aside in an effort to track down the Elusive Count, was carefully herding him back towards his quarters. The first part gave Luke pause and he fully faced the servant.
"Why did you call me a Master? I'm just Luke, alright?"
The servant sputtered slightly, but did not make any corrections. Luke frowned as he was steered through the many halls. The servant was acting like his word was law. And Luke was beginning to be concerned with just how little he knew about Count Dooku.
Brushing aside his concerns—For now—he allowed for the servant to usher him back into his quarters with a fluffy towel and told him to take as long as was needed. He really was tired, and hungry. Maybe they'd found some less exotic food for him to eat.
Oh, how he was disappointed.
On one hand it was nice that Count Dooku cared so much, but he needed to eat something… more normal. Not whatever space upper class was eating in their luxurious homes on Coruscant. And he wasn't Coruscanti. He was a former farmboy from Tatooine and now he served as Separatist engineer. And engineers normally ate something definitely (infinitely) cheaper than whatever Count Dooku kept serving him.
It was in this manner that a pattern was established. Luke would spend his morning hours after breakfast going through as many projects as he could think of, mainly their blueprints and schematics. Break for lunch on the insistence of Count Dooku's many servants and then continue his crazy trial and error of workable prototypes. By dinnertime, Luke would be quite exhausted. He'd sit for dinner and eat what he could of the expansive spread. After dinner he would usually stroll the grounds accompanied by a prototype or two. "For research purposes" he told the grounds keeper who was glaring at the imprint of a metal foot in the middle of his garden walkway. It wasn't Luke's fault the man had decided to water the path!
This continued for roughly two or three weeks. Luke wasn't sure; he'd since lost track of time, so it came as a complete surprise when he had company at the dinner table that night.
Dooku acted as if he'd never left, instead choosing to ask after Luke's projects and sign off on some and give feedback on others. Luke was thoroughly frustrated with Dooku's lack of explanation since the Force mishap the first day so when he walked past the training salles that had been pointed out to him in his grand tour, he was entirely expecting it to be empty and quiet as it had been for literal weeks. He was not expecting a bald chick to be kicking the osik out of a training dummy.
"Uh...hiya."
She whipped around and threw a knife. Yes. A knife. At Luke's face. Only Luke's (probably Force-enhanced, though Luke didn't care and didn't dwell on it) reflexes saved him. Luke reached over and hit the close button on the side panel. He didn't waste any time and quickly left the area. That was the beginning of the odd occurrences on the estate.
Dooku checked in frequently. Listening with patience as Luke explained his various projects. Showing Luke how to build his mental shields so as to not repeat the incident. He also brought Luke several original schematics and some prototype schematics for various Separatists' war toys. Dreadnoughts, drills, spider droids, tanks, you name it.
But there was one in particular that caught his fancy and sparked his imagination—an Ion Cannon. Luke's addition to this rough idea? Ion cannon on a dreadnought. It would allow for someone to disable a ship without initially damaging it. Luke presented the idea to Dooku who in turn devoted more of his time to Luke and showed him small things as well as listening to him babble on about all of his projects. The ion cannon project got kickstarted rather quickly and then Dooku's time wasn't as free. The Count was still the leader of the CIS so he put his best general in charge of the warship and sent it out for some tests. It was in this lull of time when Luke had spent a while without seeing the Count, even at meals, that the bald chick struck.
Luke was enjoying a stroll around the compound in one of his rare moments of a brain stump. He'd been trying to get his thoughts in order and failing miserably when his legs were swept out from underneath him. He crashed to the ground, head knocking against the metal of the compound floor and he caught a glimpse of his most recent prototype in a pile of smoking bits and pieces. The bald chick was standing above him with a dangerous expression on her face.
"Who are you?"
The question came out as a snarl and Luke had the distinct feeling that he was in terrible danger.
"Hi again. I'm Luke Skywalker."
Apparently that was the wrong thing to say. She hissed and the cylinders in her hands blazed to life as crimson blades of energy. "Oh shit." Luke dove to the side and the lightsabers carved a gouge into the metal ground. Dooku was not going to be pleased.
"Look lady…" Luke dodges a slash that was aimed for his neck "I'm not sure what's got you in a tizzy-" a downward sweep that would've caught a limb "but I can assure you that it wasn't my fault!"
"What do you know, whelp?"
Luke gave up trying to reason with the Hairless Harpy and turned tail and ran. She obviously was not going to listen. He could faintly hear the hum of her danger-glow-sticks. He turned and focused on outrunning the mental woman only to come to a screeching halt as Count Dooku turned the corner just in front of Luke. Luke went down in a tangle of limbs and there was a sparking hiss noise and the sound of electricity on electricity. (Yes Luke knew what that sounded like...which wasn't a good thing.) When Luke had stopped tumbling, Dooku had stopped Demented Demon Lady and her Flashy Zap Sticks with his own glow sword. Heaving a huge sigh of relief, Luke climbed back onto his feet and inclined his head at Dooku.
"I see you have met my apprentice, Asajj Ventress," Dooku enunciated flatly, gesturing toward the now named Apprentice.
The apprentice in question deactivated her glow sticks and bowed to the Count who turned on her with lightning sparking in his eyes. Luke knew that never promised anything good so he quickly interjected.
"Uh, Count, sir?"
The Count's gaze, still flashing dangerously, swung back around on Luke.
"Pray tell, what did you do to cause such an uproar?"
Luke swallowed and answered as truthfully as he could.
"I'm not exactly sure, sir. She just tripped me without warning and started attacking me with her laser swords."
If he was being honest, he would love to have one of those. He made a mental note to ask Dooku where he got them.
The Count nodded slightly and then turned back to the apprentice.
"Behave, Ventress. He is under my protection. You would do well to remember that. You might work with him in the future."
With that he swept away and left the two of them standing in the now scarred hallway.
"Uh...your laser swords are cool?"
Luke ventured as cheerfully as he could muster. Ventress scoffed at him and stalked away with hardly a second glance leaving Luke alone to pick up the pieces of his project.
"Nice to meet you too." Luke muttered, feeling sour.
It didn't take long for him to collect up the warped metal and cart it back to his quarters. It didn't take him long to repair the damage either. Everytime he left his quarters he was extremely wary. No need to try and die a second time this week. He didn't see Ventress for a full week. He later learned that she'd been disciplined... whatever that meant.
The next time he saw her, she was once again ripping shreds out of a couple of droids in the dojo.
"Hey. I think we might've gotten off on the wrong foot."
Luke stood by the door, ready to flee at a moment's notice. Ventress kicked the last of the droids in an impressive display of force enhanced muscle. The droid collapsed in a shower of sparks before turning to Luke.
"If you're here to gloat, Skywalker, I suggest you move on. I'm not in the mood."
Gloat? At what? Luke had to play this carefully if he wanted to avoid a repeat of a few days ago.
"Uh, gloat? I'm not here to gloat. I just wanted to say I'm sorry?"
Ventress rolled her eyes in a hugely exaggerated fashion and moved over to start stacking some heavy mats up against the walls.
"Sorry for what, brat?"
She hissed it out and Luke wisely stayed out of the way as the heavy training mats slapped the ground loudly.
"I don't know. Everything?"
Wrong answer. Mount Ventress exploded.
"Everything, you say? You're sorry for suddenly being the most important thing in my master's life? For him having no time for me? You're sorry that it was my fault I got punished? Save your pathetic apologies for someone who cares, like Dooku."
She turned and roundhouse kicked the nearest object which was luckily not Luke. This was all so confusing to Luke. She'd been punished for being curious? Jealous even? That didn't sound fair.
"I'm sorry it's my fault you got punished. That wasn't fair. Can we try again?"
Luke held out his hand and hoped with all of his strength that Ventress didn't decide to just break his fingers or something. A sigh echoed through the space.
"Fine, brat. Truce."
Her hand was surprisingly soft, not at all what Luke had expected. He grinned in anticipation. He could tell that now that she wasn't trying to kill him that they were going to become great friends.
"One condition, Ventress."
He didn't let her hand go, but yanked her in close.
"Stop calling me brat. It's Luke."
He squeezed her hand again and let it go, leaving without looking back. He got about halfway down the hallway before she said anything.
"Alright, Luke. But you have to earn the right to call me Asajj."
Luke raised a hand in acknowledgement but didn't stop. He heard a faint snort and internally celebrated like Life Day had come early. She'd laughed! That was even better than Luke had hoped.
Luke spent the rest of the day finishing up his latest prototype: The B1 battle droid 2.0, finally completed after many weeks of hard work.
A revamped version of the separatist B1 battle droid had been a project of Luke's since he first laid eyes on the current schematics. It was a cheap and mass producible design, which Luke could understand for an army, but there was just so much untapped potential. Even limiting himself to the current resources for standard battle units, he had found dozens of design inefficiencies from the bad wiring on the main processors, to the flawed programming of the targeting system, to the general lack of combat efficiency.
First thing that he did was completely rewrite the programming. The corporate made program made hastily at the beginning of the war left much to be desired, and it resulted in a droid with absolutely no analytical or logical thinking capacity whatsoever, and even the most drunken smuggler would surely be able to aim more accurately than those targeting systems, something that made the impractical design even more useless.
And speaking of the design… HE could do better while BLINDFOLDED. Whoever created that junk was completely stupid and useless (a completely useless idiot). Just like the design. Hell, only slightly strengthening its limbs and adding better photoreceptors would do miracles! And of course there was so much to be done with the torso design with crappy plating and the shoddy joint design requiring extra power with no return. That's to say nothing about the head, which came off too easily with just a quick yank or twist and regularly short circuited with poor protections on the wires, making the neck among the stupidest of weak points.
Much of it was a process of reworking rather than swapping out parts. The base design did have roughly the right intent, flawed as it was, so much of his modifications simply altered parts that were already there. He only swapped out the most useless of components, such as making the elbow and leg joints ball-in-socket for more mobility and to make them reversible.
Perhaps one of the most fatal flaws was how blasters were carried externally, rather than being builts in like in the B2 units. It seemed redundant for a droid to carry a blaster that could be knocked out of their hands rather than just having it ingrained in the arm where an enemy couldn't steal it or disarm them without the disarming being quite literal.
Financial constraints would not allow Luke to add any more armor to the droids, but he could equip them with personal shields like the droid commandos that a droid could hide behind while shooting. It was not as heavy duty as it could be, and it definitely wouldn't stop a Jedi laser stick like the droideka shields, but it would stop blaster fire from hitting the lines as they advanced and allow for quick cover on the field.
Finally, he reworked the storage system. The rows and columns that the droids would be stored in while being transported and charged worked well enough as it was, but a hexagonal storage system would allow for more units to be stored in the same amount of space. What he did was alter the body so that it could conjoin in a storage unit with six other droids at the head, shoulders, hips, and bottom. The result was a storage system that didn't need any additional racks to support its shape and could theoretically allow for droids to be stored and charged just about anywhere if needed.
He had completed a dozen prototypes for demonstration and had sent the blueprints to Dooku for them to be approved.
Well, he should have expected that while Dooku might be a very literate man, he wouldn't have much technological know-how, so he had found himself standing in front of the man, with the prototypes standing lined up next to him in perfect attention waiting for his commands.
"Very impressive," Count Dooku remarked as he slowly walked around Luke's creations, subjecting them to his hawk-like gaze.
Luke wished for the count to elaborate on that, but the man seemed to be busy calculating what kind of damage his creations could reap for the Separatists enemies. "If you call them impressive now just wait until you see what they can do," Luke began, excited to go over all of his improvements to the count, "The original design has been reworked for better mobility, accuracy, and power efficiency. I've also designed an improved storage system, so that more droids can fit per carrier, and I've even equipped them with cost effective shields so that they won't be shot down as easily."
"Tell me, Skywalker, are they ready for demonstration against living opponents?" Dooku inquired, stroking his beard. Living opponents? Did Dooku want to deploy them on the battlefield already? Luke had assumed that they would be tested against other droids first, but live soldiers would be the most realistic simulation.
"Of course, but only if you have opponents supplied already. I wouldn't like to bring my only prototypes on the battlefield just yet," Luke replied.
"In that case, ollow me and tell your-" the Count took a deep breath and once again, as his stare trailed shiny metal creations, "-droids to go with you." At those words, Count Dooku set a fast pace out of the chamber where he met with Luke, then down the stairs and out of the fortress, along the graveled path lined by already familiar stone monoliths and to another building. Even from the distance the building looked robust and fairly indestructible; from the close view even more so. And then Luke noticed that it was in fact connected to the main part of the fortress.
As they entered, Luke suddenly felt deaf, numb, blind as if some part of him just stopped being and seeing everything around while he knew that his eyes were working just fine. He trailed his hand along smooth dark stone the wall just to reassure himself that it was still there. He focused on the light clanking of his droid prototypes. They were much quieter than the original design, but none of Luke's efforts could completely erase the sound completely.
"Do not fret Skywalker. This prison is meant to hold force sensitives such as yourself. The sensation that you are feeling is from the fortress dulling your connection to the force.I will teach you how to negate its effect on you in time, but for now you must deal with it until this demonstration is over."
Prison? So that's how Dooku was planning to test his droids. Luke wondered how many prisoners could be stored in a building this big. Probably thousands, though with the amount of battles that the Separatists engaged in combined with the sheer size of the Republic's clone army, he doubted that this was the only Separatist prison that there was.
"Here is where you need to part with your droids," the Count told Luke as they came up to an intersection where there were two staircases, one going up, and another going down. "There they enter an arena, where they were facing their opponent."
Luke ordered his prototypes to go through the door Count Dooku showed him and when they disappeared, Luke once again followed the Sith lord up to a room that could be called a command center that overlooked a large gladiator style arena.
Several standard B1 units were already stationed by the two visible entrances before the twelve prototypes arrived, marching in rows of three.
From the other entrance emerged a line regular B1s that were escorting a group of… were those clones?
There were a dozen of them, helmets off, probably confiscated, with the rest of their armor still on, but stripped of all of their extra equipment.
"What better way to see how they'll do on the field than by testing them against actual clones," Dooku declared, gesturing toward the arena.
Luke looked at Dooku, down at the clone, then back at Dooku, staring with the oxymoronic cold intensity that only a child of the desert could possess. Luke was somewhat reminded of the underground fighting arenas on Tatooine, where he and Biggs had often snuck out to see. Sentients of all species would try their lot, and many came there to just a nice bout on unadulterated violence. Slave owners would often have their slaves compete then take a large cut of the prize money. Some would revel in the quick escape that the violence and cheering crowd would bring, but others would rather die than be used for a spectacle.
This seems similar, yet completely and utterly different. Being three stories higher than the base of the arena made it feel more removed, like he and Dooku were orchestrating the show rather than watching it and reveling in it. The lack of an audience other than themselves and the bright lighting of the arena made it feel cleaner in a way, but also somewhat soulless. He was beginning to miss the grit and grime on Tatooine, where everyone had an innate understanding of each other from the shared hardship of living on a desert planet.
"Won't clones on the field be armed?" Luke asked, his eyes staring intently into Dooku's. Arena fighting on Tatooine was almost always unarmed, but that was to make it fair. He didn't see any blasters on the clones while the prototypes were equipped with blasters and shields, and he knew that his prototypes would easily destroy unarmed soldiers with their improved capabilities.
"They will be given blasters, though they can be remotely disabled should it be necessary, and certain measures have been taken to prevent them from being used for anything other than their intended purpose in this demonstration."
As he said this, the clones were each handed a blaster by the droid escort. One immediately tried to turn on the droids, only for him to grasp his neck in pain.
Shock collars.
Luke didn't react. He'd seen this plenty of times on Tatooine. He could feel the clone's pain from all the way up here through the Force, a sensation that he now recognized because of Dooku's explanation. He had learned to filter it out, but it had been some time since he had felt someone else's pain, and he was having a harder time ignoring it.
"Your shields need work, Skywalker."
Luke purposefully didn't look at Dooku when he was chided, instead focusing on the clones. Those around the one in pain were trying to comfort him, one patting him, while the others stood as menacingly as they could, but not taking any action lest they cause their own collars to be activated. After a minute, the clone was helped to stand, leaning slightly on the clone that patted him.
Dooku clicked a button and a holo of the clones in the area showed up. He could see a corresponding holo of Dooku and he down below.
Up close, Luke could better see the details on the clones' armour. Each clone had a unique paint job, though much of the paint looked to be wearing away. Their faces were indeed all identical, which while not a surprise, was certainly interesting to see first hand.
"You have been gathered here to test a droid prototype designed by my new head engineer Luke Skywalker," Count Dooku announced to the clones. (Several clones shifted at the name. He really ought to figure out who in sith hells this other Skywalker was) "You will fight the droids and any survivors will be ransomed back to the republic."
The collars shocked all the clones at once, rendering them immobile. The ordinary droids walked aside, prototypes circled the prisoners. Luke's insides clenched. He could feel the pain and fear in the arena. The Count looked expectantly at Luke, waiting for him to order his prototypes.
Luke felt as the shock collars turned off. He clenched his jaw and tapped his datapad. His creations began to advance on the clones. To slaughter them. The clones would have no chance but fight with their hands. And what was the purpose of a demonstration, if it wasn't done properly? None. The answer was none.
Luke stopped his prototypes.
"Give the clone's blasters now. They need to be able to defend themselves now, not when they're dead, or this demonstration will be completely pointless," he demanded, turning to the Count .
"Should they, now?" Count lifted one of his prominent eyebrows, looking firmly into Luke's eyes with his own, golden trimmed with red.
"Yes, they do," Luke insisted. "They need to fight against capable opponents so that their performance can be accurately measured."
"Fine then," Dooku said and tapped on something in the control panel. Immediately after from the ceiling of the arena fell twelve blasters right in front of the clones. The games had begun.
Droids were activated again and so were clones' blasters. The soldiers of the Republic did not hesitate, raised their weapons and started firing. What they weren't prepared for were both shields installed into all droids' arms left. The protective field expanded in front of each one of them, effectively protecting their entire height; their top right limbs raised and blasters visible on their wrists.
The clones were fast and agile. But not enough. Luke watched with fascination as his droids blasted poor clones into smithereens. When they ended, he smiled, proud.
Two of his prototypes fell, those models would not be produced, but the rest performed effectively both individually and as a group. He looked at his datapad with displayed performance results. His creations were surprisingly impressive.
Count Dooku reached out with his hand and took the datapad to Luke, going over the results himself.
"Congratulations Skywalker. The blueprints will be sent out for mass production by the end of the week."
To say that Luke was speechless would be an understatement. His creations would be produced? Just like that? On nothing but one demonstration and the approval of this man standing before him?
He knew his skills had been valued on Tatooine (he had often made extra money by fixing up ships and droids, and his mechanical skills were vital to keeping the vaporators operational) but surely he wasn't anywhere near this good.? And yet, he stood there listening to the biggest commendation his work had ever gotten, wide-eyed. It was good enough and appreciated enough, but then again, pretty much anything would be better than the absolute junk that is the original B1 units except for a literal pile of junk.
"Uh, ehmm, thank you, sir," Luke managed to say, when he shook down the initial shock. Then he smiled. Oh, how he couldn't wait till his creation had hit the battlefield.
Anakin Skywalker watched as the Separatists droid carriers settled down and unloaded their cargo. First thing that struck him in his eyes was the amount of droids. Normally only two thirds of what was there now were stacked into the carrier. The second thing was a different design. Still looked like B1s. But different B1s. And the weird tingling feeling in the back of his head, in his gut…
His commlink chirped. "General? How does it look there?" Rex asked.
"We got a large company. They have a new style," Skywalker replied.
"A nice new dress? Perhaps they kidnapped Senator Amidala's tailor," Fives quipped through the line.
"Cut the chatter, Fives," Rex scolded his brother. "We got an objective to carry out, no gushing about the Senator. Same for the General."
"Excuse you, Rex? I never gush about Senator Amidala," Anakin returned, seemingly offended. "Now, let's see what Seppies have for us."
General Skywalker jumped from behind his cover and charged forward.
Death. So much of it. Blinding his senses, piercing his mind, shattering it into pieces. Blood. He felt it splattered on his cheek; it belonged to one of his men. Dead. But he was still alive. And the only thing that stopped him from being fully aware of the wish he would be dead was a memory. Of his wife, dressed in a beautiful white dress, her hands in his, but feeling with only one hand. The other was mechanical, dead; just like so many of his men.
Only good thing was that Snips was gone, on Coruscant, or she might be dead too.
He looked at one of the destroyed droids. New and deadlier design. Somewhere behind the Separatists' line was an engineering mastermind, hidden, menace. And the Republic had to get them or kill them before they came up with something even worse.
Though she had a rocky start with the other Skywalker brat, Luke as he called himself, Asajj Ventress was now grateful that her Master had stopped her before she had done any permanent damage.
Luke Skywalker was a strange enigma. Though she didn't see anything worth Dooku's attention at first, she now understood her Master's interest in the boy. He was strong in the force (that much was immediately apparent) though it would be hard to see what Dooku would want with a doe-eyed untrained brat no matter how powerful.
But now she saw it.
Luke held a certain edge to him that not many sentients possessed. She could see that in how he worked tirelessly on his many projects through the morning then late into the night. It shone in the recordings of his attempted escape when he stared down Dooku, willing to do what he must and blatantly refusing to let anything stand in his way, a quiet, confident ruthlessness that was ever so lacking among the Separatist's ranks.
That's to say nothing of the boy's engineering skills. Ventress had yet to see a slaughter as thorough as when she commanded his droids on the field. She had let out a smile when she sensed the General Skywalker's fear. These new droids were perfect for overwhelming the Republic's forces with the deadlier aim, swifter movements, and portable cover that allowed them to fire safely while marching in.
Suffice it to say, Ventress' return to Serenno was a triumphant one.
The first time she saw Luke since coming back was once again by the training salles. She almost threw another knife at him when he opened the door.
"Hello again, Luke."
"Miss Ventress! How was the campaign?"
"General Skywalker and his troops ran in terror when your droids entered the battlefield?"
"General Skywalker? Is that who Dooku mistook me for?"
Of course he wouldn't know who the great Anakin Skywalker was. From what she had gathered, he was from the same backwater planet as the General. The war would have very little stake there, and the shameless Republic propaganda spreading the name of the so called 'Hero with No Fear' wouldn't have spread nearly that far out from the core worlds. She would just have to educate him now before it did.
"General Anakin Skywalker is a Jedi working for the Republic. They call him the 'Hero with No Fear' but if you meet him, you'll soon realise that his true nature is that of a whiney stuck up brat."
The boy looked puzzled for a moment, as if contemplating something before he gave his reply.
"Well, I'll be sure to tell him that if I ever meet him."
At that, Ventress let out an undignified chuckle, which seemed to make Luke light up in the force even more than before. Luke would make a terrible Jedi, with all the pure emotion that he exerted even unintentionally through the force. He would be a force to be reckoned with should he be trained.
"So do you want a rematch?"
Speaking of training…
"Focus, Snips! This is important," Anakin Skywalker snapped at his padawan.
"It's important for you," she accused him, "they could just send someone else. And you know that as well as I do."
She watched as her master tensed, fighting off his emotions. Years spent in Jedi temple had taught him how to suppress his feelings; he had never understood how his peers could release them into the force so easily.
"I know they could," Anakin admitted, "but I lost half, HALF of my men there, to those new murder machines. I need to know who constructed them. And in order to do so, to sneak right into Serenno, you need to learn how to mask your Force signature."
Ahsoka sighs and does as her master requests, wrapping the force tightly around her presence until it felt somewhat like a blanket. Maintaining it was difficult, and it shattered rather abruptly when Anakin poked at her defenses with the force.
"Ahsoka! What did I just tell you?"
This was going to be a long training session. Scratch that, a long mission.
"Ah geez, you kick Hard," Luke said as Ventress and he left the training salles. His ass had been thoroughly kicked, not that he was expecting anything different after how their first confrontation went. Still, at least this time it was a fair fight.
"And you fight well for a simple engineer Luke."
"I doubt that Dooku would have hired me if I was just a 'simple engineer.' He seems to think that I have some sort of hidden power," Luke replied honestly. It's not that he didn't believe him; it was just that he wasn't used to being called out for being special. He was just a simple moisture farmer as far as most people knew, and the force thing seemed pretty absurd at first.
"You are strong with the force, and you have the Dura-steel will that the Jedi oh so lack that makes it possible for you to reach your full potential in the dark side."
"Dark side?"
"It's a certain branch of the force, much more powerful than the light side," Ventress explained, "it feeds off of your emotions. Your hate. Rage. Fear. passion. You channel it into the force and harness it as a tool to destroy your enemies and achieve your ambitions."
That was a lot more helpful than what Dooku had told him so far, which was mostly complaining about the Jedi and less actual explaining of the force. He had the distinct impression that Dooku was egging him on, dripping information slowly, to keep his interest alive. It was something that his Uncle used to do to try and get him to work on the moisture farm, though from what he's seen so far, Luke doubted that using the force could hardly be too tedious.
"So what makes the light side so bad?"
If the dark side uses raw emotions, then what could the light side use? It would have to have at least some advantage if there was an entire order dedicated to using it.
"The Jedi forbid emotion and attachment. They think it means that they have absolute moral right, and that they should butt their self-righteous little heads where they don't belong. It makes them weak, it makes them stupid."
When she put it like that… it made sense the Jedi were wiped out. If Jedi were really like that, they wouldn't survive a minute somewhere like Tatooine, where everyone knew that right and wrong was purely up to the person in question, and where interference usually went bad for both parties.
The desert, after all, held no morals.
"And you think that Dooku wants to teach me?—the dark side I mean."
"You have potential Luke, and I look forward to seeing you grow into it."
"And I look forward to learning."
That's a wrap.
Expect chapter three and four to be out relatively soon, then chapter updates will either be weekly or as they are finished depending on how well we stick to the writing schedule.