As Jamis finally had the freighter again to herself—in some way—she took the time to reflect. The freighter's silence helped in making her think clearly without any sort of disturbances. Slumped against the booth-type couch of the lounge, she stared at the metal ceiling of her ship and recalled Kylo's words regarding his offer to train her, then with the apparent foresight, she thought of the underlying loopholes and fallacies of his bargain—ones that would occur naturally once her guard is off.
She closed her eyes for a few minutes, still thinking and wondering how she is going to respond to his offer. While he stays in his chambers patiently—or impatiently—waiting for her to make a move and say something in his face, whether it is the one thing that he wants to hear or the thing that he needs to hear from her.
"All right, Jamis, how are you going to handle this?"
It felt like she spent half the day inside the threshold of her ship, until she wordlessly deliberated with herself. She evaluated the advantages and the disadvantages, the possible—yet unpredictable—events that could happen in the middle of their deal, or worse: her worst fears realized with her fear of failure and being rid of either at Kylo or Hux's disposal.
Eventually, she came to conclusion with her decision. She ran up to her quarters and shed out her clothes that she wore for God-knows-when. She sported an all-black ensemble of a tank top, a black jacket, pants, boots, and gloves. She wetted her hair with a half-filled canister from a few days prior her arrival and incarceration in the Finalizer and combed her long brown locks. Before leaving, she opened her strongbox filled with her array of weapons and picked up a long staff that she had constructed out of scavenged or traded materials—the kind of quality sold from corrupt and shady outposts and warehouses like in the sleepy small-time town proper of Tatooine.
She slung the staff across her back and stepped out of the ship, she took one last look behind as she walked forward—away from the Stellar Wind—and the cable holding it down did not disappear.
Oh, that's right, until he says so. Jamis thought, followed by a vexed eye roll. She marched back in the confinements of the Star Destroyer and kept her sights on Kylo's location—a vastly spacious area where Kylo himself sits patiently with eyes piercing straight at the door, expecting her.
Unconsciously, Jamis does not realize that the farther she gets into his whereabouts, the lesser people come and go—not as crowded as any wing or annex of the ship—but she does not mind it. She was so
focused on the idea of sparring Kylo that she did not become aware of her surroundings.
At the end of the hall was a gray steel door, unguarded but sealed—the look of it is inviting in itself—and it was literally the end of the corridor; there were no control panels, no surveillance devices, no roving guards—nothing. Jamis cannot sense any other presence on both sides of the door—none except for her own and Kylo's in the other side.
A slight tap in the Force caught Kylo but he remained steadfast and still in his posture. Yes, he senses her on the other side. Just a little closer now.
From Jamis's side, she could feel Kylo luring her in then she felt the presence of her lightsabers—sitting on both of his sides. She stepped closer towards the door and realized that she had to use
the Force to open it, however, uncertainty befell her as she was standing right in front of it. Her self-doubt rung loud for Kylo to hear, he felt it but he was sure that she can do it.
"That's where you're wrong, that's where you're weak," Kylo thought out loud. "Your self-doubt tramples on your own belief of your own strength."
Jamis put down the staff, so she could invest her energy in attempting to open the door; she took a series of deep breaths and let go of all the tension clinging in her system. When she finally felt relaxed, she gestured her hands in mid-air, palms open like how she tore down one of the rails to lessen the number of her enemies and pushing one of the Stormtroopers out of her sight in the process when she was welcomed by a barrage of blasters, and cleared her mind.
Indeed, tearing down a rail and platform from a hangar would mean that her strength and sensitivity with the Force was of high calibre, but she cannot control it yet—rather, she has not fully accepted it or embraced it within her, that is why she failed. She was half-surprised that the door was heavier than the platform, she assumed that a door this conspicuous would mean that it was something more of a challenge than the platform she tore down from the hangar.
"Come on," Kylo mumbled, anticipating a sight to behold. "Let that power within you flow!"
The door creaked, opened, and a ray of burst into the wide space where Kylo sat. Standing before him, in the center of the doorway, was Jamis with her hands raised in mid-air and keeping her focus on the door as it rose upward, shying into a slit in its frame; then she found him there sitting in the center of the room, clad in black as well, with her sabers' hilts twinkling with the little light exposed to it as each rests on Kylo's side, and his own lightsaber laid down in front of him.
When the door had risen enough for her height to fit, she stepped in hesitantly, thinking that if she let go the door would fall on her but it did not as she consistently focused on it and so she had gotten through the door—staff in hand—and faced a calm, tranquil Kylo Ren.
Kylo scoffed at the sight of her with another weapon, "Foolish hunter, bringing another weapon in this midst," Jamis did not speak, clearly she knew that he was in a state of taunting her—possibly to get her emotions going—and she let him continue.
"You perfectly know that I had them here," he turns his head on her lightsaber on his right, the blue one, as he speaks, she begins to walk towards him slowly. "You want them back, I know."
The Jamis before him was new—this was not the bounty hunter that acted like a hissy, rebellious teenager during their interactions together, this was a bounty hunter who wanted the other end of a bargain rightfully granted without diversions.
"Go on," he insisted, gesturing on the lightsabers. "Take them. You see my saber? It would take me two seconds tops to reach for it and strike you."
Jamis still had the staff in her hand and then she eyed on the twin lightsabers and then his lightsaber, in her head, she was planning how she was going to take control of the situation. Is this a
test? She thought.
He's definitely toying with me. Rung in her head.
She locked eyes with Kylo, slowly she stretched out her right arm to the side with the staff in hand, and then she dropped it—letting it clatter on the floor as it hollowly echoed—but she did not keep her eyes away from him; with that out of the way, she then focused her mind on the lightsabers, pondering on how she will snatch them away from his reach.
"What are you waiting for? Here they are," he gestured both of his hands at them. "They're yours to take, after all, you own them."
As the tension builds, Jamis remained standing as Kylo remained sitting down—head tilted up to face her and look at her in the eyes—she was only waiting for the right timing of him being caught off-guard so that she may have the upper hand, but the young, lacking fighter did not know any better.
Quick and sudden like a flash of violent lightning, Jamis—with all her might using the Force though unlearned—managed to take only her red one. The split second of igniting it allowed Kylo to snatch his own from the floor and switch it on and block her attack. Frustration manifested out of her fighting form, immediately decreasing her odds of winning over this spar, and Kylo saw through this. Before he could think of countering and gaining the upper hand, she had already broke free from their clash and recomposed herself.
What a sight to behold the sparring episode was! Two red lightsabers clashed against one another. Happening in the confinements of the room, no other witnesses other than an omniscient being who is just as powerful as Kylo and Jamis combined—perhaps maybe more than their capacity—but is absent in their midst.
Kylo made a hard thrust of the saber towards her—as if he was about to stab her—but she evaded it by a sweeping dodge to his nine o' clock, bent down with one leg stretching outward to maintain her balance, and then she stood up ready for another one.
As sweat trickled down her neck, she readjusted her grip by spinning her weapon—a taunt so commonly used by Jedi and Sith alike—and calculated her next attack as Kylo paced to the side, anticipating her next move. Her hands greased the hilt with her sweat but she tightened her grip as best as she can but doubted the outcome of her attack.
"That's what makes you so weak," taunted Kylo. "You do not have the confidence that you can even beat me."
"Your arrogance won't even save you anyway," Jamis retorted. "Deep inside, you know you're broken—you just don't admit it."
This provoked Kylo, he wondered where did she rooted that feeling out of him—he did not realize that Jamis had felt a part of him, an unknown part of him, back in the freighter that same day, thus she used it against him and to her advantage in the fight; and then Kylo comes running towards her, closing the gap between them with his lightsaber at the ready—she now finally has the chance to block him, and all it needed was a little nudge of the broken ego.
Kylo growled with great annoyance at the insult spat at him, although he denies it, he knows full well that it is true: he knows that he had been broken—by a particular scavenger originating from nowhere but can handle a lightsaber with great profiency—and he did not want to be broken again this time by some bounty hunter who can wield a lightsaber and a variety of other different weapons. Jamis saw the expression in his eyes—it made him look both pitiful and terrifying, with his bruised eye and scar, the fire burning in his eyes that only signified nothing but rage, and the way he moved with that lightsaber in hand. Everything about him was so tragic and saddening.
It made her think of her own disposition at some point in her past: alone, beaten up—either physically or mentally or both—and bottling up all her emotions until she is ready to explode any time soon. She was nothing when she came to the planet she considered her home planet: Corellia. The environment surrounding her was harsh and one must learn to speak the language of scoundrels, thieves, hunters, gamblers, and big-time gangsters in order to fit in and avoid getting beaten up into a bloody pulp in a cantina. Later, she realized that she feels like she has come a long way after everything that has happened to her… and everything that she has lost. She feared that she might end up like him—if things do not go the way they are planned—afraid that she might be irritable, undignified, too egoistic and violent: it is another form of her that she may not recognize her old self, should the time come.
Violently, Kylo's lightsaber clashed on Jamis's raised saber, sparks flew and both struggled against each other's strength. Jamis could feel all of Kylo's weight burdening on her, her stance cannot stay still on her spot, and so her footing made little steps backward; subtly, she was planning to get closer to her blue saber that remained undisturbed and untouched ever since she and Kylo clashed lightsabers. She collected all her might to push Kylo away so that she can continue having the upper hand of the fight. Surely, she can fight her way out of this lumbering height of a man. She pulled away again and connected her next attack—only to be deflected by Kylo—the spar goes on and the victor is not yet apparent.
The way their attacks connect and the flow of their individual movements were impressive—to each their own—but Jamis needed work on how she will gather her strength to actually make a considerable counterattack.
"Flimsy," Kylo commented, "You attack like an eight-year-old Padawan!"
"I didn't ask for your opinion!" Jamis roared as she connected another attack on Kylo, out of her frustration, she managed to Force-push him to a reasonable distance to regain her stance and footing.
This time, it was Kylo who was backing up with every attack—he was putting himself on the defensive, as he noticed that Jamis was becoming more and more aggressive, if not stronger in terms of damage—in the back of his mind, he wondered if this is going to be either his advantage or hers. Both of them had a certain rhythm of each and every parry, lunge, thrust, and lob. It was only a matter or skill.
It never occurred to Jamis why was he being so… giving. It never came to her mind as she was only filled with adrenaline and anticipation of each and every attack. While Kylo managed to be much calmer and more composed compared to his rookie opponent.
How pathetic. He thought to himself, looking at Jamis with a tinge of pity and mockery.
Another strong attack from Kylo and Jamis clumsily stumbles, losing her footing, and losing focus. This time, it was his turn to do the taunting spin in front of her face.
"What you didn't realize is that… I'm just getting started."
Jamis heaved, ignoring the beads of sweat trickling down from her temples to her chin; she actually had the perfect stance to grab her lightsaber. She stretched out her hand, palm open, and the blue saber flew straight into her grip and instantaneously the blue shaft of light emerged from its metallic black hilt—in her periphery, the saber illuminated her right side and she felt a energetic burst of emotions that have been welling in her for quite some time now—she manages a smirk and looked at Kylo straight in the eye; she gripped both sabers tight and spun them, adjusting to her preferred—and mastered—handling.
"Take your best shot, kid!" she roared but with a newfound confidence.
Sparks flew, sabers hummed and buzzed, and both fighters exerted their strength, endurance, and dexterity for just a training session. Kylo—being more seasoned in terms of lightsaber combat—noticed that Jamis's handling of both sabers were just as rustic as the way she wielded only one. He felt the need to improve that trait of hers—if he is going to finish the other end of the bargain. He decided to coach her verbally while they fight, something that he has taken from one of his early lessons dating back to the time he first held a lightsaber.
Relax your grip on them. Any more pressure and you'll go stumbling like a protocol droid!
A memory of Luke—and his voice—rung in Kylo's mind, rather Ben's mind, it was one of the earliest lessons that he had received from his uncle when he was young, when he was still staying in Luke's Jedi temple and academy… before he succumbed.
"You're putting too much force on it," uttered Kylo.
This took Jamis aback, the strength and force of her attack softened, and she was surprised to hear him talk this way—in a calm, mentor-like tone.
"What?"
"I meant your attacks are still flimsy, but you have stance, the strength of your attacks would only inflict lesser damage because they're… they're directionless."
Jamis raised an eyebrow, she stepped away from him, making sure that this was the real Kylo in front of her.
"That's why you got easily tired, from what I observed." He added.
"I only broke a sweat, so what?"
"Any more of that sweat, you'll be heaving and dragging yourself around the room like a Bantha."
Jamis let the quick attitude change slide and then readjusted her grip on the sabers, she caught her breath and wiped the sweat off her brow, and noticed Kylo looking at his own saber.
"Get some rest first, we'll continue in a bit," he shyly muttered.
"I wasn't getting any better, was I?" Jamis uttered, piling up the nerve to say it when she felt ashamed.
"You'll get there," Kylo attempted to console her.
"Right… my knowledge with these things weren't really that… whole."
"I can see that," nodded Kylo. "Who was your mentor—the one who taught you how to use that?"
There was a brief pause from Jamis, the silence loomed around the room, Kylo was waiting for her answer but she was trying to fight back her tears as she bit her lip.
She took a deep breath first, then she said firmly and simply while choking on tears and loneliness, "To be honest… I don't know where he is now."