The great escape

by Bigmike33321

Star Wars AU. This is going to be continued from the cannon ending of season 2. Rick is in prison, the Smiths are in shock, to say the least, so, who is this mysterious man from Ricks past? And what does it mean for the Smith family, and more importantly, with Morty? Rating may go up. Parings, might make them up, who knows.

3. Chapter 3

An old friend, and possible new love interest(For Morty that is)

A/N: Title says it all, not gonna spoil anything, but this might be promoted to a M ranking in a few chapters, he's still hung up on Jessica, but who isn't? Or do I just got a thing for redheads? Eh.

Disclaimer: I own nothing to do with Rick and Morty, just my OC's and the idea for this particular story.

Morty PoV

3 Weeks. That's how long we've been training. Well, he calls it training, I call a lot of breathing and doing nothing.

"Your mind is not clear, Padawan," Ren calmly says from across the room. We turned the garage into a rec room/meditation area. In the 3 weeks he's been here, he had me sit, and breath, to concentrate on nothing, and everything, as he would call it, in order for me to form a connection with the force. He also had me do a number of exercises, push ups, crunches, squats, and running. The basic4 that we do for PE. "Is there something that you need to tell me?" He asks.

I open my eyes to see him sitting cross legged, his arms out stretched, and leveling out on his knees, and his thumb and forefinger are connected in a loop. I answer his question, "N-no, I don't need to tell you anything," I say.

He opens his eyes, and places a hand on his knee, the other on the floor to support his weight as he leans back. "Ok," he says after a second. "Is there something that you want to tell me?"

I've also learned that he's very precise with his words. "What?" I say, trying to play it off, but to no avail.

"Come on man," he said sighing. "Your mind is all over the place, what's wrong? And don't say it's not nothing, It has to be something. And until you can admit it, and we find a way to get past it, your connection to the Force might never manafest."

"Ah, jeez, y-you really think so?" I say, unsure. "C-cuz, if it's that, then maybe I should go on another run-"

"Morty," Ren interrupts. I stop, he never does this, unless it's serious. "Whats wrong? Is it girl trouble?"

"W-what?"

"I went to school with you, I start it full time next week as my cover, and I noticed on your tour of the place that you're very interested in a certain redheaded ginger looking girl."

"N-no. I-it's not that," I said looking down.

"Oh… is it boy trouble?"

"What?!" I said completely shocked.

"Cuz, if your… how does the Earth saying go? Homosexual? Is that right? If you're homosexual, it's fine. Lot's of being out in the universe are, some political officials are-"

"No!" I all but yelled. "I'm not gay, it's not girl trouble, and it's definitely not boy or Rick trouble," that last one was because I caught him catching me getting teary eyed over a few parts to his portal gun. "It's not any of that. It's… it's just…"

"It's… what?" He says patiently.

I sigh. "It's just… what if I'm not good enough to be a Jedi…." I look down at the floor, on an oil, or blood, or alien plasma spot between my legs on my indian style seat. I look up at him. He has a hand on his chin, and then he motions for me to go on. I sigh again and say, "I've been doing a lot of thinking… and I know that you know that, you being a Jedi and all. But I've been thinking about a lot lately. All that's happened, Rick leaving, you coming here, and… and…. Why me?" I finally look up at him. "Why am I the one who always gets thrusted in the middle of it all? First Rick wants me to be his little helper when he runs on his little adventures, and I learn he only does that because he wants me as a human shield and that my brain waves cancel out his. Then it's up to me, me of all people to tell my mom that her father isn't coming back home, and that he abandoned her, yet again, and now you come here and you tell me that I can be a Jedi? To what end!?" I realize that I'm yelling now, but I don't care. "Why is it always me that has to do all this crap? What if I don't want to go on an adventure? What if I don't want to be the one to tell my family that it's going to be broken apart again? What if I don't want to be a fucking Jedi?!" By the time I'm done I'm panting and tears are leaking out of my eyes. "What if I'm not good enough because I was never meant to be any of this?"

He doesn't say anything for quite a while. I take the time to get my breathing to calm down and to wipe my eyes. Then he says, "Morty, look at what you're doing." I look around and I am startled to see various things around the garage floating in mid air. When I become aware of what's going on, everything just drops to the floor, as gravity takes over. Ren get's up and walks over to me and pulls me into a hug. I am a little startled at this, but sensing, yes, sensing that he means nothing by it other than to comfort, I just hug him back, and more tears fall. "Morty, I'm not gonna force you to do anything that you don't want to do. Hell, if it wasn't for you wanting to let me train you, I would be outside in those bushes, watching you all from afar, to keep my promise to Rick. It's in this way, that I get to do that, and have the added benefit of not keeping a secret like this from you guys." He pulls back, and holds me by my shoulders and looks at me evenly in the eyes.

"I don't have all the answers, and I definately don't know how to make you feel like a million rubles, Hell, I can't even get myself to feel that way," he drops his arms and moves back a few paces and turns around, clearly thinking. "Trust me when I say that you're not the only one who feels that way, I've been feeling like that for the past 20 years, and not for the reasons you may think, I've seen some shit. We've both seen, and done some things that we would most rather forget and bury. But we can't and you know what we do?" He turns back and looks at me, and I see the age that he's been talking about, the look in his eyes show that of a man who's seen it all. "We live. One day at a time, not because we have to, because we choose to. It may be for different reasons, it may be for no reason at all, other than to simply just exist. We may have to live for the people we love, the people we hate, to protect someone, or to serve someone. But in the end we live for us and us alone. Because it's who we are, survivors." He walks up to me, and past me to the door. "No more training for today, think over what I said, and try to move past it. No one likes a Debbie Downer."

He goes into the house, leaving me alone with my thoughts.

Later

It happened at dinner. We were all eating at the table, mom and dad asking about how my training is going, and if it's gonna get in the way of my school work. Other than that, they've been kind of ok with it, for the most part. Dad was kind of excited because he's a huge Star Wars fanatic, and he's practically fanboying because it's been proven that it's real.

Mom, well, she's just happy that I've made a friend my age, though in appearance, and that I'm not out there getting myself killed, as she puts it.

He was in the middle of telling them, "It's slow going, but hey, as you human Earthlings say, Rome wasn't built in a day."

Then something beeped in his pocket. He took out a black device, looks like a cell phone, with a raised circular thing with glass on it, and a few buttons, like a keypad, under that. He looks at it, frowns, pushes a button, and palaces it on the table.

In an instant a hologram shows up of a wizened looking cat person and a young girl around my age blocking laser blasts with a lightsaber behind him. "Ren, if this message reaches you, we need help! We had an altercation with some gangsters in the Ishtar region of the Malgas system. We need help, please hurry!" he then brought out a green colored lightsaber and the message cut out.

Ren looked… dumb founded…. Then he got up and made for the door.

"Woah, woah, wait!" I said, getting up to follow him. "What's the rush?"

"That message is two days old. The frequency that my communicator is attuned to, it takes about 2 days for it to reach this distance, and it takes about 14 hours to fully prep my ship, so, I need to move fast."

"Hey," I say, trying to be the diplomat now. "Chill, you said that it's two days, but for all we know they can be dead," he cringes and shudders. "Or, they could be fiiiine," I say, trying to brush it off. "Their Jedi after all. Who are they anyway?"

"That was Master Ka Ramuh, the cat person, and his apprentice was Serenity. Master Ramuh completed my training and promoted me to Knighthood when Master Tsunade died."

"Really?" I ask kind of awe inspired.

"Yeah, about 5 years after the fact, I only met his Padawan once, and that was 2 years ago. But… you're right, for all I know, they could be dead, and rushing to find corpses probably won't do me any good, but I still have to know. At least to give them a proper burial if the need calls for it, or to make sure the Federation doesn't catch wind of this….. Pack a bag, we leave as soon as I can get my ship up and running."

"Woah woah woah, wait a minute," My dad said, getting up from his food. "What makes you think that he's going anywhere? Especially if you're going to fight a bunch of gangsters and maybe get caught by this, as you put it, "Evil Galactic government"?

"Well," this surprised me, usually he doesn't push or argue a point with my parents, but this time, I can see, no, I can feel that he's not going to back down on this. "For one, he's my Apprentice, meaning where I go, he goes. It's a learn-learn thing. And two, who the hell are you to say no?"

"Well, I'm his father for one!" My dad shouts back.

"And I'm a highly trained Jedi Knight. And I did a LOT to earn that title," Ren replied.

No one said anything. "You know," Summer said, calmly sipping on her juice. "He has a point dad."

"What? No, he has no point!" My dad argued, but when no one backed him up he stopped talking.

"Look," Ren said, "I'm not so unreasonable, if you're concerned about Morty's safety, then by all means, tag along. Lord knows I need all the help I can get," he trailed off to mutters as he left the kitchen.

I followed him as he made his way to the garage, looking back I notice everyone else follow us. Once inside the garage, he turns to me and says, "Ok, so, knowing Rick, he probably hid a bunch of weapons near his workspace, right?"

"Uh, yeah," I said. "But the Federation came and took everything, even in the sub lab-"

"Come on Morty, you give him too little credit," Ren said with a smile. "You and I both know that Rick's too smart to let something important like a weapons cache slip through the cracks and be taken. Now, you knew him better, did he ever say or show you where he might hide a bunch of weapons?"

Thinking over what he said, and remembering the psychic parasites, I say, "He turned the knob on the washing machine one time, and the wall slid opened up to a gun rack."

Ren walked over to the washing machine, and turned the dial, kind of hard, but I could tell that he was using the Force to find the right spot, and the washing machine buzzed, slid into the ground and the wall slid forward to reveal a fully loaded gun rack.

"Woah," Summer said.

"Yeah," Ren replied, "Woah indeed. Now, pick out your favorite, some ammo, grenades, and melee weapon. We leave in an hour."

Later

About an hour later, all of us are armed to the teeth, have a backpack of food, cloths, and other provisions each, and we're sneaking through the town, snaking through alleyways, avoiding street traffic, and we finally end up at the edge of town going through the woods. "Ok," Ren says, speaking up since we left the house, "we should be ok for now, but keep close and keep quiet. It's about a mile hike to my ship."

Traveling through the woods we eventually make it to a clearing overlooking the town. If it wasn't for the many ships lights that dot the sky, it would think that the sight overlooking the town would be beautiful.

We enter his ship, it looks like the x-wing from X-men, but about 2 stories bigger. It had a dome on top with two cannons sticking out of it. He took his communication device from his pocket and with it, he opened a hatch that slid down to make a ramp.

Inside it as reasonably roomy, the airlock that we walked into was basically the cargo bay/eating area, boxes were stacked in designated areas and about picnic tables were sitting in one corner, spaced enough for people to walk through and eat comfortably. Ren walked over to a corner near a table and activated a robot that looks like R2-D2, only it was a faded red color instead of blue. He pressed a switch on it's side and when it booted up he said, "R-6, do me a favor and prep the ship? We need to calibrate the energy conversion unit and change the flux filter on the hyperdrive." R-6 made a series of beeping noises and he said, "Good lad. Ok, I'm gonna get the sleeping arrangements done, and give them the tour of the Phantom Spirit, ok?"

It made a confirmation beep and rolled off to other parts of the ship. Ren turned towards us and said, "Ok, so, who wants a tour of our temporary home? We have adequate sleeping areas, a common room, turrets and cockpit. But first, why don't we see about our sleeping arrangements?"

He waved his hand and closed the hatch ramp by flipping a switch with the Force on a panel next to the door. He then lead us down a hallway directly opposite the hatch, and up a ladder that was next to a door. "This leads into the engine room, R-6 is in there checking on the calibrations, up here is to the common area, and down to the rooms, and cockpit. The kitchen is next to the common room as well." We walked up the ladder and came into to a living room like area. In one corner it had a restaurant style booth with a square table that had a chessboard pattern on it. Opposite it was where we came out of, next to it a door that lead deeper into the ship, next to to that on it's left was some counters. On them is what appeared to be a fish tank, but instead of fish, there as crystals growing in a slightly blue solution. Also a microwave, coffee maker and a mini fridge. On the left side of that room was another door.

"Past that door is the kitchen. It has a fully stocked fridge, 4 burners, and water, that's a resource that has to be restocked when ever we land, plumbing, waist gets vaporised whenever we fire up the engines, but, it is limited to a few dozen gallons of it, so, don't use the bathrooms all at once, or within a few hours of each other, if you can hold it that long. As for the burners, it runs on electricity and the ship has to be in standby mode to work. Now, let's go and choose out your rooms."

He leads us past the door, it slides open, that is next to the table. Past it is a hallway with 6 rooms in it, 3 doors on each side. Ren walks to the door on the far left. "This is my room. Each room has a bunk bed, so it can fit 12 people, it won't be comfortable, but this ship is built as a mobile house for a crew, so, we'll make due. Now, who wants their own room, and who wants to bunk?"

"Well, me and Beth would like a room to ourselves, if you, have a single queen size?" My dad asked.

"No," Ren said simply. "Bunk beds were in mind when I built Phantom Spirit. But a single can fit two if you squish together."

"Fair enough," my dad said. He and my mom took the room directly opposite Ren's.

"Summer?" She was already in the room next to Ren's. "Ok, Morty? Which room do you want?"

I thought about what he said about this being a house for a crew, and a crew are people who work together in sync, so, "How about I bunk with you?" I closed my eyes and waited for him to say no, or worse, to laugh and stick me in the room farthest from everyone else. Instead he placed a hand on my shoulder.

"If that's what you want," he said. He then turned and walked into the room. The door slid open and inside it was no bigger than a walk in closet. On the far wall opposite the door was no more than a shelf with a mattress on it, and another one like it 3 feet above that. "Like I said, pretty cramped, but, it's home… at least, for now it is." We walk around the small space. There's enough room to move around comfortably, though, not all at once. On the right side appeared to be a night table with various papers, books and a few holotapes and holocrons. The left side had draws, presumable filled with cloths. "Put the weapons down on the bottom bunk, mines the top. Come on, we'll sort everything out later, but for now, let's get you and everyone acquainted with the ship and we'll be on our way."

So we ended up on a thorough tour of the Phantom Spirit, the cockpit held 4 seats, 2 for the pilot and copilot to sit, and two others for passengers. There was a ladder next to the door to the cockpit the lead up to the top turret. He showed me, Summer and my dad the basic controls, how to move it, how to fire, though we didn't actually fire. Then we went into the kitchen, it looked pretty much like a normal kitchen, and then down into the engine room where R-6 was moving about, checking on some of the monitors with his plug in arm, and Ren went to a big machine, a little taller than him. It looked like a high tech cube made out of motherboard.

"This is the energy conversion unit. Those crystals that I was growing in the common area? Their a synthetic form of kyber crystals, has no real use other than to look pretty, but it houses an energy source that is hard to come by. Well, this machine works like a microwave, in a way, to remove that energy and store it in a magnetic safe to be used for later use. Think of it like nuclear fission from the center of the sun."

"Why not use energy from the actual sun?" I asked.

"Because it would take thousands of years to harness that much energy by waiting, and if we park her right next to to the sun, we'll either A) get crushed by the massive gravity, or B) incinerate by shere heat of the sun, and C) fall directly into the sun, becoming stardust as burn up in a cosmic nuclear fire."

"Oh," I said in a small voice.

"Ah, don't sweat it, I had the same questions when I first came up with the idea, and Rick, well, you know how Rick is with these types of questions."

Thinking that is all too true, he goes to work by opening a drawer like panle, he grabs basket from it, and it's filled with the crystals he was growing on the common room counter. He takes the basket to a nearby barrel, where he whacks the basket on the brim of it. The crystals break apart and turn to dust, leaving only a few intact. "These crystals are made of carbon, calcium, iron and magnesium. But the elements are chained together in such a way, that you would have to be god to figure out how to make it completely perfect. Me and your grandpa came close, well, as close as two incredibly smart mortals can be to god, and we made this. Only problem with the energy conversion unit is that the storage for the energy expires. Energy cannot be created, nor destroyed, only converted into different forms. We managed to find a way to convert it into a type of liquid energy, kind of like the sun, but over time, it cools."

He refilled the basket with crystals from a box and put it back into the converter and pushed a few buttons. He then told me to go back to the room and meditate for a while, and try to call on the Force to lift a few objects in the air. As I left he started to talk to R-6 about the hyperdrive calibrations.

When I got back to the living areas I saw Summer sitting alone at the table in the common room. Thinking that training can wait for a few more minutes I slide in across from her. She glances up, "Oh, hey Morty," she said, kind of tired.

"Hey Summer," I say back. "So, uh, what do you think about all… this?" I say gesturing all around us.

She looks around then back to me with a sad smile. "You know," she says, "It's all kind of...surreal. I mean, after all the amazing, wonderful, terrible things that grandpa Rick did for, and to, us, everything that's happened up till now feels… I don't know…. Forced, I guess?"

I look down at my hands, thinking back to everything that's happened. Me standing up for myself at school, Ren showing up, saying that he knew Rick and proclaims himself a Jedi, then proclaiming me, of all people, a Jedi too! Though, through his brief training, I can start to feel the Force as well. So, I say, "Yeah, I know what you mean. I mean, last month we were across the galaxy getting dad cured of some super virus in an alien hospital, and now I'm a Jedi in training. And now, w-we're gonna meet some actual Jedi who actually seem like they know what their doing."

"Heh, yeah, yet they got themselves cornered, or worse," she said. I was about to protest, but then thinking about that message that came in earlier, so I don't say anything. "I don't know though," Summer continued on. "I mean, it seems like a wild goose chase, but, we've faced far worse, right?" She said looking at me with a hopeful smile. "I mean, remember Unity?"

I grimace, not because of the situation itself, but because of what it did to Rick afterwards. "Yeah," I say. "Not to mention that me and Rick visited a planet that had an annual purge holiday. You know, like the movie? The movie called the Purge, where they let everyone kill each other once a year?"

"Yeah, I… I remember the movie…. How did you survive that?" She asks.

"Power armor that Rick made you shoot across the galaxy," I say simply.

"Of course," she said.

We sit there for a few more moments, just taking in the laps of events, the calm before the storm. You know, those type of metaphors with all that sentimental crap. But eventually, I have to get up. "Ren told me to go and meditate, so, I'll talk to you later Summer," I say to her. She waves me off and I go to me and Rens newly shared room.

As I pass the doors I hear my mom and dad arguing. Fixing to ignore them I continue on to my room, until I hear my dad say, "I don't want Morty to be influenced by this again!"

Stopping, my finger just centimeters from the door button, I turn around and creep closer to hear what their saying. "This is just another Rick situation all over again!" My dad was whisper yelling at my mom. "And you, you're getting yourself all hung up on someone who's supposedly from your father's past, that you're letting it blind you to the obvious truth."

"And just what is that?" my mom snaps back, and from the tone of her voice I hear that she is crying a bit.

"The truth is that you don't want to be alone!" My dad finally shouts. "But after all that you've done, after all that we've done, you still can't get over the fact that your dad left you, even though we have two kids, a house and carriers that we can be proud of… even though being a horse surgeon isn't really a major job choice."

"What was that?" My mom said.

"Oh come on! You're just an overglorified vet, at best! My job needs a Masters in business and law, while you just go to school learning about animals! What do you know about anything that actually matters?" At this my mom starts to openly cry. I close my eyes, and reach out through the Force to try to 'see' what's happening inside the room. What I find, I don't like.

One thing about 'looking' through the Force, it's not like seeing with your eyes, you don't exactly get a clear image like a picture or something of the sort. It's more like, it gives you something, and you interpret it however you can. And what I 'see', isn't good.

My dad is standing in the corner of the room with his arms cross, 'looking' smug. I know he isn't actually having that look on his face, but the Force is allowing me to 'see' what he's doing, and I'm interpreting what it is, for how it is. Because that's how he's feeling as he messes with my mom's feelings. Smug.

"And another thing," my dad says. "Anyone to do with Rick, unless they're trying to kill him, is bad news. Look at what happened at the wedding. His best friend get's murdered just because he knew Rick. We were persecuted because we're, well, you, are related to him, and by extension the kids… and me," he said in almost an afterthought. "So, the first chance I get," I 'see' him go over and grab a laser rifle. And even though he's not actually doing it, I 'see' a murderous look on his face. "As soon as something goes wrong, I'm taking him out."

I open my eyes and wrench myself out of the Force. I turn around and go into the room, cursing the way the door makes a 'Shhh' sound as it opens, and how it slams close. I begin pacing around the room, sweat is pouring from my face, back and armpits as my anxiety skyrockets and heart begins to pound. Stopping, I think to Ren, how I told him to calm down when he learned that his friends might be dead. Things happen, sometimes we can stop them from happening, sometimes we can't and just have to roll with it. This isn't something that I can stop, or just roll with… yet. So, I'm gonna do what Red told me to do, and that is-

I get on my knees, and sit on my feet. I take my hands and connect my forefinger and thumb into a loop, and begin to think of nothing… and everything at the same time. I open myself to the Force, and let it flow through me, each breath like a lap of water, the waves the very fabric of space and time, each lap washes away my worries with every breath. Soon, I am calm, and able to channel the Force, it flows like a gentle river, and I open myself up to it.

Soon, it's just me, and my innermost, deepest thoughts, and my worries being washed away. Whatever happens, will happen, but that doesn't mean that I won't do anything about it. Just because they do happen, doesn't mean that it'll be bad. We just have to take it in stride, but how we take it, and what we do in those situations are entirely up to us. Because the Force flows, and as a Jedi, we control here it flows.

All too soon, the door slides open, startling me out of my meditation. Various objects, papers, holotapes, a unloaded beam rifle, fall to the floor. Ren walks in, a smile on his face. "Well, you got the meditation down right, I have to say, I'm impressed. It usually takes a padawan years to even get that far, yet, you're progressing rather well in a matter of weeks." The door slides shut as he walks in. "The ships prepped, we just need to wait for the drives to recalibrate and R-6 will let us know when to take off."

He begins to go around the room and pick up the things that I was subconsciously levitating. Then thinking to what I overheard my dad said, I decide to speak up. "R-Ren?"

"Hmm?" He says.

"I… I need to t-tell you something," damn, stupid stutter….

After I was done telling him what I overheard, and how it prompted me to go into meditation to try to think of a way to resolve this, I find myself sitting at the edge of my bed, hunched over, and hands clasped in front of me, looking at the ground. Ren is sitting on his table, it's metal, bolted into the ground. He's sitting slant, but ridged, his legs crossed at the ankles and his arm folded over his chest, typical cool guy teenager. I sometimes forget how old he really is. When I was done he said, "Yeah, I kind of suspected something like that."

My head whips up. "What?" I ask, dumbfounded.

"Jedi, remember?" He says, waving his hand around, with a smirk on his face. I made a 'right, right' sound and he continued, "I felt something of that nature coming off of him. He's… so self centered. He thinks that everything that's happened is the universe's way of trying to bring him down. He likes to feel like the big shot, and no matter what happens to him, losing a job, being in a failing marriage, having kids too early, he still holds on to the hope that he's right, that this is just a lapse in what is suppose to be a cakewalk for life. And now that events beyond his control has removed the biggest obstacle of his life-"

"Rick," I say.

He nods and says, "Yes, with Rick out of the way, and him being in control, no matter how little, he doesn't want to let go of it. But don't worry, I can handle whatever he throws at me." Just then a beeping comes from a communicator on his wrist. He check it and a series of beeps comes through. He nods and says, "Ok, thanks R-6." The connection cuts out and he says, "Ok, the drives are done calibrating. We can talk off now. Oh, and by the way, it's 4 in the morning now. You were meditating for a long time."

Just as he was about to walk out, I get up and say, "Wait!" He stops and looks at me. "What will you do if my dad tries something?"

He thinks about it, and says, "I'm a Jedi. Meaning, that I am a peace keeper. If he tried something, I'll handle it don't worry."

"Yeah, but what if-"

"Morty," he says and I stop. "Even if I have absolutely no choice but to resort to violence, I promise you that he will be left alive, and he won't be harmed… at least," he turns and opens the door, "at least in a way that his life won't be in danger."

He walks out, and I follow him. We go into the cockpit, and he pushes a button. An alarm blares out. Everyone comes out of there rooms and storms into the cockpit. He shuts off the alarm and says, "Goodie, ok then, the drives are done calibrating, and we are about to take off, everyone strap in." He hops into the pilot's seat, mom and Summer strap into the extra seats behind him, and I make for the copilot's seat, but my dad puts a hand on my shoulder.

"Woah, what do you think you're doing?" He asks.

"Taking a seat," I say trying to brush off his hand, but he holds firm.

"No, you're not gonna sit in the back. I want to be up here."

"What does it matter," I say, swatting his hand off of me.

"What matters is," he says, starting to yell now. I see my mom start to get up, and Summer trying to say something, but the don't do anything. "What matters is that I'm the adult, and your father. So you will do as I say and that's fina-"

"Morty takes the copilot's seat," Ren cut off my dad.

"What?" He's dumbfounded as I said, "Ha!" and dove into the seat. "Why?"

"Because," Ren said, getting up and into his face. "I don't like whiney bitches in my workspace." My dad's eyes widen, then get angry but before he could do anything Ren sat back down. "Besides, Morty has more experience than you do."

"What?" Me and my dad say at the same time. "How?" he continues.

"You drove Ricks car, right Morty?" He says, flipping a few switches. The ship's engines turn on, and you can feel humming coming up from the ground.

"Uh, yeah?" I say.

"It's basically the same concept, only more buttons. I'll teach you what they mean later, I just need someone less annoying to fill the seat next to me."

"But where am I going to sit?" my dad asked whining.

"Go to your room, you're grounded until we make our flight." When my dad was about to protest Ren shot him a look, and pointed to the door. He walked away and made a grumbling sound. "Ok then," Ren said after my dad left the cockpit. "Let's get started. Everyone buckle up, it'll be a bit bumpy until we leave the atmosphere."

3rd Person PoV

Unbenounced to them, as the ship was taking off, it was being watched. 3 propulsors were firing underneath the ship giving it lift. As it hovered, higher and higher, until it was well past the tree tops, the primary engines fired and it shot forward, gaining speed until it had enough momentum that the propulsors weren't needed anymore, and they cut out. The ship sored off into the distance, until it curved upward, gaining speed as it broke Earth's gravity.

On the ground, just outside the clearing the ship was at, two cloaked figures, a boy and a girl, walk out from behind the tree line. They smile, and the boy brings out a communicator. He presses a button. He speaks, "This is Inquisitor Lance, they have taken off. Commence pursuit."

In space, Morty's PoV

Once we broken the Earth's atmosphere, things get real quiet. The engine is silenced to only a hum that you can't tell is there unless you listen really carefully, and if you notice the hum that makes the ground vibrate beneath your feet. It was rocky during take off, the whole cabin shook, and you can feel the strain of the artificial gravity generator as it tried to keep you on the ground, while the planet's natural gravity made you want to fall back towards the ground.

But once we make it outside that influence, things smoothed right out. And once again, I am, no, we are, as a family, plus whatever Ren would make as my teacher and connection to Rick's past, see the vastness that is space. As the last wisp of atmosphere burns off of us, we see the stars peak out, white dots against the black backdrop of space's canvas, some dots are different colors than white, but the sun's own light filters it out, so we only see the pinpricks of white that are the galaxy's stars.

"You know," Summer says from behind me. "You never really could appreciate the beauty of all that when we traveled around with grandpa Rick."

"Yeah," I agree. "His engine took all the fun out of it."

"Same," Ren said. "Plus, he was the only one who knew how to make a engine like that. Us 'mortals' have to take the 'mundane' way to travel."

We all share a collective laugh, but it was cut short as the ship rocked as blaster fire hit the hull. Outside the cockpits windows I see streaks of green lasers as they miss their fire on us. In no time, Ren said, "Ok, everyone strap in, I'm gonna get R-6 to calculate the hyperdrive." He gets on a com-link on his dashboard. "R-6, prep the hyperdrive!" Some beeping responded to him. "Set it to the Malak system. We need to go to the Ishtar regen there," some more blaster fire exploded on us. "Hurry up!" He cut out the com, and put on the speakerphone. "Jerry! I need you to get on the top turret! My instruments are telling me that we got several bogies and a few bigger ships on our 6 and closing fast."

"Oh," dad's voice comes out over the intercom. "Now you want me, I thought you didn't want to share space with a 'whiney'-"

"DAMN IT JERRY, WE'RE GONNA DIE!" my mom gets up and shouts at the intercom. There is no reply, but we hear a door slide open and running steps to the ladder outside the door.

"Ok, Summer, out in the common room is a ladder to a hidden turret, I need you to go to it and start firing at the enemy ships. Think you can do that?" She nods, but has some hesitation. "Just think of it like 'galaga' ok?" She nods again, this time more determined, and undoes her seatbelt and go's for the back turret. "Morty see that button there?" I look at where he's pointing, it's a flashing yellow button. I nod and he says, "Ok, I want you to press it and hold it until it turns green, ok? That's the controls for the shield generators, I need you to push that one, and the other two next to it until the shields fire on each of them, ok?" I pressed one at a time, and held them until they turned green. He did the same on his side, and a new humming could be heard, when the blaster fire hit us, it still resonated through the ship but not as violently as before.

"Ok, now, I'm gonna give you control over the bottom turret, remember, just like galaga," he flipped a switch over on my side and a panel slid out on my right, and a steering wheel flipped out. It was basically two joy sticks, but they were connected. On the screen that flipped out with the panel. It showed a turret coming out from the bottom of the ship, directly underneath the living quarters. It was a mounted camera with a hud to tell me where to aim, how many enemies and all in real time.

After the turret was done getting ready, I began shooting. The ships were almost like the Y-wings from Star Wars, but were sleek silver. And everyone that I shot they exploded. I looked back at Ren and saw that he was shooting some with a frontal turret at the ships that were in front of us, and maneuvering us out of the way of their blaster fire at the same time. Out of my perifs I can see my mom clutching her seat tightly. I went back to my real life galaga game.

We were in that dog fight for a little more than a few minutes, but it felt like an eternity. All too soon, thank god, R-6 beeps in and Ren smiles. "Ok, here we go. Morty, see that lever in the middle of the dashboard?" I look and nod. "Ok, pull that when I say so, get off the turret."

I swivel my chair and reach for the lever.

"Not yet," he says, as he maneuvers past some Y-wings. "Not yet… NOW!" I quickly pull the lever, and everything went really, REALLY fast. First, the stars started to elongate, and change into a tunnel of stuff, but as the stars did that I was pushed back in my chair as gravity forced me backward. We shot off, and were out of the dog fight.

As the G-force subsided, Ren leaned back and said, "Phew," and we all let out a collective breath.

Just then my dad came in, along with Summer, he was saying, "Did you see that!? That was incredible! It was just, blam blam! Peeww pewww! And then we just-"

"Jerry?" Ren interrupted.

"Yeah Ren?" he said.

"Not that I don't admire your enthusiasm, but, shut up." He did. We stood/sat there in silence for a few minutes. Then, "Ok, we have 3 and a half hours until we reach Ishtar. So, gather some of your weapons, and meet me in the cargo hull."

10 minutes later me and the family were sitting at the tables. I had an automatic laser rifle, mom had a laser pistol, dad, you know what, all of the weapons are laser based from this point on, ok? Got it!? Ok, good. Dad had a heavy rifle, big and bulky, able to produce a blast that has a radius of 5 meters. Summer a much sleeker rifle, like a sniper or a hunting rifle.

A minute later Ren walks in, dressed in a tank top, black cargo pants and combat boots, what is with him and combat boots? Questions for later.

"Alright, first things first, hand over the live ammo you got loaded up," he said as he came in. We did that and in turn he handed us some different cartridges. "These are stun rounds, non lethal, but can pack a punch, don't worry," he said when we look at him confused. "These aren't for you, there for those," he took his remote for the ship out of his pocket and clicked a few buttons. Instantly some holograms appeared in the center of the room. "I think you all know what to do now. 10 points for heart shots, 50 for head."

2 hours later and we're all pretty much proficient in shooting, and even managed to score adequately enough on the live battle simulation. Then, Ren took me aside. "Morty," he said as he handed me a pole with a high tech hilt. "This is a practice saber, it has two settings. Stun, and kill." He walked to the other side of the training area, across from me, and motioned for everyone to clear the ring, or, well, the space where the holograms appeared. He took out his lightsaber, and activated it, the purple beam of superheated plasma sparked to life, the pppshhhhh-vvvvmmmmm filled the the air, adding to the hum of the hyperdrive. "Remember, set it to stun, I'm gonna go easy on you, just to teach you the fundamentals."

I activated the stun setting, the stick glowing from the hilt up, and sparking with static electricity. I took a stance similar to his, right leg forward, left slightly back, shoulder with apart, both hands on the hilt and holding it in front of me, blade slightly forward. "This is the basic kendo stance," he said. "Keep the point of the blade level with your opponents face," I adjusted my form. "Good, now, remember. The Force is a Jedi's greatest allai. Keep it with you, and let it guide. Now, defend." He sprang forward, and tried an overhead cleive. Not thinking, I put my blade up and let it take the blow. The sheer force of it made me fall to my knees, but I held the blade level, his glowing sword making a + over me. He let the blade go, and took a step back. "You have quick reflexes, good." He took another swipe, this time at my left side, I blocked, then he switched patterns and hit my right, I blocked. He kept it up for a few more turns, and I was already exhausted. He finally let up and took a few steps back. "Ok, you have somewhat good defence, but you're not letting the Force flow through you."

"Well, w-what do you w-w-want from m-me?" I said back.

"Well, nothing but the best, actually," he said. That made me stop. "But we're going into a dangerous situation, anything could, and probably will happen. So, I want you to atleast attempt to channel the Force, and let it guide your actions during battle. I don't expect you to get it on the first try, but we need to see at least where you're at in terms of combat. Now, again."

And it was like that, for the next hour or so, he would strike, I would defend, I would try to concentrate on letting the Force move me, so, finally, he put down the purple blade down and said, "Ok, this isn't working…. How about this?" he deactivated his lightsaber, and sat indian style. He motioned for me to do the same. I did. "Remember what prompted you to meditate earlier?" I nodded and shuddered. "Think back to those feelings, but this time, I want you to work on letting go."

"What?" I ask.

"Emotions can be dangerous for Jedi, they can prompt us to become close to the Dark side if we're not careful. So, when you go in that meditative state again, I want you to think back on those emotions, to feel, and then I want you to let go. What you did earlier was a big step, but the way you went about it was all wrong." I looked down and made a grunting noise. "Hey, it's fine though, that's why there are those who teach. Now, no more talking, concentrate."

I nodded and closed my eyes. I thought back to what my dad was saying, what I 'saw' him do, and I felt the emotions rolling back to me. The confusion, the hurt, the anger, and just like last time, I opened up myself to the Force. When I felt the tug and pull of the waves of everything that I was connected to, I let go. I let go of all emotion, of all my worries, and I opened my eyes.

We got up, we both activated out weapons. I gave him a look of confirmation, he nodded. I nodded back, and this time, I struck first. I moved faster than I ever felt I ever could before, and tried to stab him in the chest, he parried it by knocking my strike so that it slid past his arm. He took his blade back, and tried to swipe at me, but I dodged by jumping back a few steps. He was on the offencive, but I 'felt' more than saw what he was doing. Little nudges from the Force telling me where he might or might not strike, and I was there to block each and every attack. Finally he stepped back and said, "Good, you're a quick learner." I smiled, feeling my connection to the Force slip. He must have felt it too, because he said, "That's ok, you'll learn to use the Force on the fly, for now let's practice some more, this time I want you to keep your eyes open as you concentrate."

About a half hour later we stopped sword play and moved onto telekinesis. I couldn't manage to move anything bigger than a small box. Ren said, "It's all in your head. Remember, what is mass to a Jedi? We move the universe to our will though the Force, and it is through the Force that we are connected to the universe. Make it bend to your will, feel the crate, and make it move." It was about 10 minutes and all I could manage to do was lift a 5 pound box. Anything bigger and I would falter. Before he could say anything else though, his wrist communicator beeped. He said, "We're approaching the Malgas system. I gotta go and take us out of hyperspace."

He ran to the cockpit, and we all started to gather our supplies. On the way back to the common room we felt the hum of the hyperdrive die out as we reentered real space, the ship shuddered and we were pulled back towards the back of the ship by gravity for a brief second as we slowed to sublight speeds. Rens voice came over the intercom. He said, "Ok folks, we're gonna be docking here shortly, get back to your rooms and rearm yourselves with real ammo. Also, there are a change of wardrobe in each of your rooms. Change into them and use the straps and holsters for your weapons. You're gonna need them to blend in."

20 minutes later I was changed. My blue skinny jeans and yellow shirt were exchanged with a faded white t-shirt, black zip-up hoodie, black pants, same shoes and a back holster for my training sword. I made sure it was set to kill in case I needed to activate it in a pinch. I also got a strap for my auto rifle and set it on my back as well. It hung off of my right shoulder and banged a bit on my thai as I walked, but it wasn't uncomfortable. Easy to get to it if need be.

I felt real gravity take over as we landed, the ship lurching as the landing gear takes the shock of the hover engines letting the ship fall the last few inches to the ground. The engines hummed off, and we were in relative silence.

Ren walked in a few seconds later, he walked straight to his bed and took a few things off of it. First was a tan t-shirt, a white Assassin's Creed style hoodie and a backpack, the first two he slipped on. The backpack was a single strapped bag, about as big as a basketball. He slung it over one shoulder, the strap going diagonally across his torso and under his rib cage to loop back onto the backpack. He pulled a drawstring to make it tight, but not too tight I noted. When he saw me looking he explained, "It's so I can do this," he then moved the pack so that the strap slid along his chest so that the pack was resting on his front. "See, I keep the zipper upside down on my back, that way when I get it forward it comes right side up. Sometimes if I'm in a pinch I use the Force to do that while simultaneously opening the zipper. Easy to do, and it fits my lightsabers in it easily." He then began to pack it with a few extra rounds of pistol blaster ammo, some holo recorders and his two lightsabers. I only ever saw him use one.

I ask, "Why do you have two lightsabers Ren?"

He pauses his packing for a brief second, but continues. He says, "Because I'm good at dual wielding. And, because I have a sentimental value to them, I guess. One is my original purple, the other is a red synthetic crystal I made about 15 years ago. It reminds me of somethings, so I don't forget and… so I don't forget."

"W-wait, red? Isn't… isn't red the color of the Dark siders crystals?" I ask hesitantly.

He doesn't answer and I know what he means. "Morty," he says when he slips his backpack back on. "My past isn't a good one. Just like your grandpa, there are some things that can't forget. So, rather than try to make myself forget like he does," I remember how much Rick drinks. "I instead choose to remember, so I don't slip from my path and do… do the things I once did." We are silent for a while. Then he says, "I choose to remember the past for not who I was, but for who I will be in the future, because if I remember now, I remember the mistakes I did and not let myself make them again, I chose to move forward and not let the past define me, instead I want it to shape me, mold me to be a better person, and a better teacher." He smiles sadly at me, and I have to smile back. "Rick kept me from total self destruction, more or less, back in the old days. At least until Master Ramuh found us, or, well, when we found Master Ramuh, the Force works in mysterious ways, bringing us together when we least expect it. Maybe I'll tell you the story one day, but for now we-" He stopped. I felt it too.

I couldn't tell if it was coming off of him, or from somewhere else, but it was like a, a… a wave of unease, resonating through the Force. Like the feeling you get right before you jump off of the high board, only magnified by skydiving and cancer. "We have work to do,"he finished weekly. "You feel that too?"

"Y-yeah. I… I do. What is it?" I ask, shaking from the knees down.

"Nothing good," was his reply. "Come one, we're late enough as it is."

When we leave the rest of them are waiting for us in the common room. They give us quizzical looks, and I take in their apparel. Mom and dad are wearing similar outfits to Han Solo in the movies. Well, dad did at least, right down to the v-neck and hip holsters for two blaster pistols and his concussion rifle strapped to his back. Mom traded the v-neck for a slim fitting t-shirt, one hip holster, for her pistol. She straightened out her hair.

Summer was wearing something similar to me, her rifle hanging off of her left shoulder, like my auto rifle hanging off of my right, and a pistol strapped to her right thai. Her outfit consisted of a open zip-up hoodie, her purple sleeveless shirt, tight fitting black jeans and instead of her usual shoes, she traded them in for combat boots. Is this a theme or something? Combat boots? Do I need to get on the hype train for combat boots?

"What took you guys so long?" Summer asked.

"Couldn't find my spare lightsaber," Ren said. "And then we felt a disturbance in the Force-"

"Ohmygodhesaidit!" My dad said, fangirling.

"... Anyway, when we leave, stay close to me. Ishtar is the 4th planet in the Malgas system, a star system of about 11 planets, Malgas Prime being 6th and biggest of the rocky planets that can hold an atmosphere in the system. But, Ishtar… think of it like a slightly bigger Earth, same atmosphere, same ecosystem, though a bit cleaner, but think about the cities all being Bangkok's abusive older brother, sister, mother and father, 5 times removed from an incestrial past and then give it autism." We all just stared at him dumbfounded. "Yeah, places like that exist. Just stay close."

We went to the cargo hold and he opened the hatch. The ramp slid down and we entered the space port. It was an arena like, since we have a pretty big ship, circular and bustling with people and astromechs bustling about. Some tried to come to our ship, but Ren waved them off. A dock worker came up to us with a tablet looking thing and he said to Ren, "Docking permit?"

Ren waved his hand and I felt the Force work on the worker's mind as he said, "You don't need to see our docking permit," and kept walking.

As he walked past the worker he said, "I don't need to see your docking permit."

Ren waved his hand back over his shoulder and said, "You will mark us as cleared and forget you ever saw us."

"I will mark you all as cleared and forget I ever saw you." He did just that, tapping the tablet with his stylist, and walked off, shambling a bit.

"Woah," I say to him. "You're not messing around."

"I feel that there is more at stake here than just making sure some old friends are ok. We need to be careful and cover our bases. Come on, we need to gather information."

"Ok, what's the plan? What do we do first?"

"What we do first," he says while putting up his hood. "Is that we put up our hoods."

I do so, and ask, "W-why?"

"It adds to our mystic!" He says proudly.

"W-what?"

"Mystic, Morty! Mystic! We have to keep up our anonymity. Plus, it just makes us look cool."

We exit the space port and head to a building across the street. We avoid a few slow moving cars and hover speeders. He wasn't kidding when he said that this place was like Earth. Blue sky, white fluffy clouds, a few trees here and there. I catch some birds of a bread that I don't know, or even think is on Earth. I catch one that looks like a hawk with spiny quills sticking up from it's head, and 3 spines coming from it's back.

We enter the building with some alien writing on the front in neon, and inside we find… a bar.

"This is a canina, pretty common near space ports. And perfect place to gather information."

He takes us to a booth on the left side of the room, and he goes to the bar. He comes back with a trey with a bottle, 3 whiskey glasses for him and my parents, and two glasses of something that tastes strangly of butterscotch.

He poured himself and my parents a half a glass each and assured them that it's light alcohol. As we were drinking, and I was thinking up a strategy to help with gathering information, me and Rick did something like this a few times before, and 3 strange alien guys walked up to us. They were the same height as a human, but they had bulbous heads, like the red queen from the live action Alice in Wonderland movie, with chinese sun hat style helmets, bluish grey skin, yellow cat slit eyes and a mouth full of shark like teeth.

They walked in a slow, but firm gat, and the apparent leader, as two of them hung back a few paces, spoke. "We've been waiting for you," he said to Ren. His voice sounded synthetic, like he had a voice modulator helping him speak. In fact, you can see some scarring on his neck. "You and your crew need to come with us."

Ren took a sip of his drink, draining the glass, and calmly poured himself another quarter glass. "And who's asking?" he asked.

"You of all people should know better than to question a summons from the Pikes, Dealer of Death."

I looked back at Ren, he shot me a look that said, 'Don't ask', and drained his drink in one gulp and got up. "Ok," he gasped from the burn the alcohol gave him. He took out his wallet from his pocket, produced a green looking credit card and threw it on the tray that had our drinks on it. "Not one to turn down a summons, I'll be back guys."

"Not so fast," the Pike said. "All of you are needed."

We all looked at Ren, he held the gaze from the Pike evenly, and said, "Ok, but, they get to keep their sidearms."

"Fair enough," the Pike said and gave us all a menacing smile. "But I don't think it'll do them any good, even with their primary weapons."

Ren's lips twitched for a split second, like he was about to smile, or better yet, smirk, but he kept his face even, and look stern. He gave him his backpack, and we gave them our heavy weapons, only being left with the pistols, and for me my training saber. Ren was left with nothing, but I got the distinct feeling that he doesn't really need any weapons.

We left with them, the leader of this group in front of us, and the other two trailing behind us, I sense through the Force that they have their hands on their pistol holsters, the thumb on the primer of the weapons, incase they need to pull them out and have them readily charged to fire.

Outside they take us to a van like speeder, and we all pile in the back, the two body guard Pikes come on behind us, and close the double back doors. In front in the passenger seat is another humanoid, but covered in head to toe with black leather and plastic like armor, and a helmet with a visor down. Not an inch of skin can be seen, but you can tell that she's distinctly female. She's thumbing a plasma rifle across her lap. The Pike group leader get's in the driver's seat, we feel the vehicle lift off the ground and speed down the street.

"Great," my dad gripes. "What have you gotten us into now Ren?"

"Hey, don't look at me," he says defending himself. "You all knew what you signed up for when you decided to tag along. Hell, I even spelled out for you what danger we might be facing." It's true, as we were getting ready to leave back at the house he was telling us exactly what to expect when we landed, the Pikes being the main topic of that explanation.

"Well, it's your fault too Morty!" My dad accuses.

"Me? What did I do?" I yell at him.

"If it was for you, your… your thingy!" at least he knows to keep my Force sensitivity on the down low. "We wouldn't be in this mess!"

"Hey, for your information-" I started, but then one of the Pike bodyguards took a stun rod and zapped my dad. "No yelling at your child! It's the most precious thing you could ever have."

"HA!" I say, then the one next to me zaps my arm making it go numb. "Ow! What was that for?"

"No disrespecting your elders," he said simply.

"Ha!" My dad said, and again got zapped.

Ren started to laugh. Between gasps for breath he says, "Did I forget to mention that the Pikes value honer and maternal values above anything else? It's like, hard coded into their DNA."

It was silent after that. Soon we left the spaceport district, and left the city all together. I look back out the window, and see that the city has a few sky scrapers, and there is a circular wall encasing the city, and, as we crossed it, absolutely nothing. Just trees and foliage as far as the eye can see. Soon we come to a building surrounded by a field of what looked like wheat, but had these diamond shape flowers on the stalks.

"You think it's a good idea to have these so close to the city?" Ren said as he eyed the field with distaste.

"How do you think we paid for the building?" The Pike in the front seat said.

"This is starting to make more and more sense," Ren muttered to himself.

We parked in front of some big doors, and were ushered out. We went into the building, and I let my senses take over, reaching out with the Force to see my surrounding what my eyes and ears couldn't on their own. I felt that Ren was doing the same, and a small smidge of pride that I'm learning so well, and also… a bit of apprehension as well. Though, from something to do with me, or the situation we were in, I couldn't tell. All of a sudden I feel a wave of warning though the Force. I whip my head to the side and see, on the second floor balcony to the long hallway that we were walking in, a sniper. And a red laser aimed for Ren's back.

I run forward to try and tackle him out of the way. Before I could get with in tackling distance, he holds his arm out to my chest, stopping me. He looks at me, smiles, and a shot rings out. He looks towards the sniper and the bullet stops just inches from his face, only it's not a bullet, it's a dart like projectile, with 5 prongs, one in the middle and 4 around it. He takes his hand from my chest, holds it out, palm towards his face, fingers caged. He turns his hand so that his palm faces back towards the sniper, and the saber dart turns with it in mid air. He opens his fingers and the dart flies back at the sniper, hitting him in the neck, I more feel than see. He falls to the floor, convulsing, and the dies.

The Pike that was leading us in chuckles and says, "Well, you pass. You're him alright."

Finally we enter a type of lab/throne room. On the far wall is this big machine with lots of pipes and steam hissing from some seams. In front of the machine is a throne, with a bigger Pike sitting on it. And by bigger, I mean he must be about 15 feet standing up, he's 10 sitting down.

Just left of the machine are a few tube like containers, two of them are occupied by the two from Ren's holomessage, Master Ramuh, and his apprentice Serenity.

Ren shot the giant Pike a look. "Seriously Colspy? This? You-you do t-this? What the hell?"

The Pike, Colspy, chuckles, a deep voice resonating deep in his chest making my core vibrate. "Oh but of course, I even found a way to hold them, and what's more, I can even transfer some of their power to feed me." He gave a drunken, menacing grin.

Ren gave him a look like -_- and said, "Is that their lightsabers right there?" He pointed to the table next to the throne where two high tech hilts could be seen, one appeared to be longer than the other.

"Oh, why yes, I love my little ornaments-" he stopped talking at the smiling look on Ren's face. "Oh no, don't you dare-"

Ren held his hand out and the lightsabers flew to his hand, he activated the shorter one and the green beam of energy sparked to life. "Everybody get down!" Rens shouted. We did, and not a second later that he activated the second lightsaber too, it was a blue double bladed lightsaber staff, and a hail of blaster fire shot out from behind us, he deflected each and every shot with grace and surgical precision and they got either reflected to the walls, or they hit the sender's, killing them or incapacitating them.

When the 3 were down for the count, and a few more guards who were there, he held out his left hand, the one with the saber staff, towards the door, and the heavy doors shut with a bang, a few clicks could be heard as the locking mechanism slid in place.

"Ok, quick take your weapons back," Ren said to the rest of us. "Morty, you're with me." He deactivated the lightsaber staff, but kept the green one a loft.

I rushed to get my auto rifle, the rest of my family getting their weapons too, my mom getting an auto blaster from one of the fallen guards since she only had a blaster pistol. I got Ren's backpack as well and ran up to him as he was walking towards the tubes, the saber staff on his belt. Colspy was watching us the entire time.

"Do you really think you can get away with this?" the giant Pike said, his voice a deep well of anger and seemed to echo off the walls. "As soon as more of my guards get here I'm gonna-" he stopped because Ren threw the lightsaber, it spun around like a boomerang and cleaved his neck, causing him to literally choke on his words. Ren held out his hand and the lightsaber spun back to him, he caught it in his hand and he deactivated it, not missing a stride in his walk.

"I told you last time Colspy," he said loudly enough for the dying Pike to hear. "You only got one more chance, and the only way for you to keep it was if you never saw me again."

I stopped short. And stared at him with a look of absolute horror. He must have sensed it because he stopped and gave me a cold look over his shoulder. "What? I told you that I have a past. I've been way too lenient towards him in the past, well, now I'm not gonna be, or ever will be again." His words were punctuated by the resonating thump as the giant Pike fell on the floor, dead.

He continued walking, and I shook of my initial shock. I've seen Rick kill without a second thought before, but his killing was different from Rens. Rick killed with chaotic prejudice, while Ren was precise and thoughtful, almost as if he only did it when he needed to. I didn't see any need there, but like he said, he must have had history with this guy.

We get to the tubes and he places the lightsaber on his belt as well. He holds out his hands and makes a sweeping motion in opposite directions. The door the the tubes explode open. He goes to the cat person, a white tiger humanoide, with a tigers and ears sticking out from the top of his head, white fur and black stripes, which leaves me with dragging the girl, a human girl, from the other tube.

Around the back of their necks are callers with 4 bulb of green light around each caller. Ren takes one look at them, and his eye go wide. "Morety, get your saber out and slash the caller, quickly, I got Master Ramuh." He sparks up the green lightsaber and slashes at the caller, it falls off of the cat person, who begins to stir. I take the practice saber from my back, with a little awkwardness, and when I finally get it out, I start it up, making sure it's on kill mode, instead of having static, lights glow along the stick, hilt up, and I put myself within the Forces and slash at the caller at it's apparent weak point. It splits open and falls off. Just like the cat person, she begins to stir, like a person waking up from a deep sleep.

Just then a banging can be heard from the giant doors. "Ugh," Ren says. "Can never catch a break." He puts the saber with Master Ramuh, and the saber staff with Serenity. "Morty, carry her over to the center of the room, now," he says at me when I was about to say something. "We don't have much time."

I shut off my practice saber, grab her staff and lift her arm over my shoulder. I half drag, half carry her to the center of the room, where Ren is already there. "Everyone gather around, I'm going to make some cover." He reaches out with the force and brings some tables over, overturns them to make for some cover, and since there were only about 3 tables, then directs his attention to the ground, and rips up some metal from the ground, bending it from the concrete foundation below. "Ok, get ready." I drop Serenity next to Master Ramuh and get my auto rifle ready. I give Ren his backpack and he takes his lightsabers from it, and places one on his belt and puts the backpack back on.

The doors explode, a big chunk of them falling towards us. Me and Summer scream out, but Ren just holds his hand up, a force field of Forces is created in an instant, and the piece slams into it, and deflects to our right somewhere. From the vibrations you can almost see the Force field.

Blaster fire begins to shoot at us from the still settling dust of the explosion, and we immediately. Ren fires up his purple lightsaber and begins to send the blaster bolts back at them, while slowly gaining ground. I put myself within the Force, and begin firing with renewed precision, mowing down a few members of the small squadron that was sent to kill us.

"Hey, you're pretty good," a female voice said next to me.

I was surprised to say the least, but thanks to Ren's training, it felt detached from this battle, a little bit, I missed a few shots. I quickly got back into cover and look to address the new voice, and am stunned at what I see. I didn't get a chance to get a closer look at Serenity, but what I see I am stunned. She has long wavy black hair, vibrant green eyes a heart shaped face, and the most beautifulest smile I have ever seen.

"Oh, uh, h-hi," I say nervously, the battle seeming a million miles away at this point. "I-I-I'm M-Morty," I say.

"Hi Morty, I'm Serenity," she says, her smile becoming wider.

"I-I know," she raised an eyebrow. "Ren mentioned your name-"

"You know Ren Ditanto!"She said, darting forward.

I was surprised by this, but before I could say anything, I felt a nudge from the Force, shoved her back, and pulled my head back as well when a blaster bolt exploded just inches from out faces, exactly where our heads were just a second ago. "Yeah," I say, placing my rifle on something solid, and fired back at the person who shot at us. He let out a wilhelm scream as he dropped dead. "He's been teaching me. I guess you could say he's my Master now," I kept firing, taking out two more, and got back under cover.

A quick look around showed my mom, dad and Summer doing well, picking off the last of the kill squad. Ren was in the exact center of their group and ours, deflecting bolts and moving almost like a dancer, and Master Ramuh was shaking off the lingering effects of whatever the callers were doing to him.

Soon the last one is dead, and Ren looks around, spreading his senses in the Force to see if there's any danger he can prod…. Nothing. He deactivates his sword and turns back to us. He places the lightsaber hilt back on his belt, spots Master Ramuh sluggishly getting up, and bolts towards him.

"Master Ka!" He shouts. When he reaches the makeshift barricade we were using for cover he leaps over it and embraces Master Ramuh in a hug. He makes a groaning noise at the strength that he hugs him with, and then quickly lets go. "Are you ok Master?"

"I was," the cat-tiger-feline person says, "Until you decided to crush my ribs dear boy," he said scolding him, almost like an old teacher or grandpa.

Ren ignores this though, and continues, "Are the callers still affecting you?"

"A little bit," the other replies. "But I'm fine, it's passing. I'm not as young as I use to be you know."

As they continue to bicker back and forth I look at the extremely pretty, and kind souled girl that is next to me I say, "Are you ok?" She gives me a look. "I don't know what those callers did to you, but it seemed to have done a number on him," I point my thumb at the pair, the wizened cat person was now lightly pounding Ren's head.

"Oh, I'm fine. Younger and fitter. And my connection to the Forces is strong enough to overcome the effects of the neural caller."

"Oh," I said. "What did you do to end up here anyway?"

"The Pikes leader's son, Venopus, 'wanted a good time'," She grimaced at the thought of it. "I wasn't having any of it, so I dumped a smoothy on his head, and, well…. This happened…. What happened to the big P anyway?" I pointed over to the throne, and she saw the giant body there. "Ah… well, good riddance, he was a dick. What happened to his son?"

"Was he any of those?" I point to the fallen Pike. "And, did he have a voice synthesizer? THere was one that the other seemed to listen to more."

"Yeah, that sounds like him," she rolled his eyes.

"Oh," I say. "W-well, he's dead too. One of the first ones to die here really."

"Can't say I'm surprised. He was all bark and no bite, he had to call for backup when I punched him in the face."

"Morty, Serenity," Ren said. "We can socialize later. Right now we need to go. Hold on though," he runs to the big machine and starts to fiddle with some of the controls on a monitor next to it. He comes back after a minute or two and says, "Ok, we might want to leave, I set it for self destruction, we got 3 minutes."

And with that we booked it, we cheesed it, out of there. We ran into some guards on the way out, they let out a feeble, "H-hult!" But Ren just Forced pushed them aside. Outside we pile into the van that brought us here, we didn't have the key, but that didn't stop him from using the Force to turn the starter and fire up the engines. We lifted off the ground, and floored, levered? The speeder back the way we came. We were nearing the city walls when a flash of light shined behind us, and two seconds later the shockwave hit us, along with the sonic boomb! that came with it. We swerved for few seconds, a side of us sparked on the road, and we righted ourselves as we got into the city gates.

Soon we were back in front of the spaceport, and we ran inside it, to the docking bay where our ship is.

"Ok, if when we get there I want you, Jerry, to tell R-6 to fire up the engines, we need to get out of there before- oh no," we stopped when we entered the docking bay. In front of us were two figures clad in the black armor that was the Pikes passenger when we got captured. The female from before, and another one, a male by the looks of his broad shoulders and lack of boobs.

"You were right, dear sister," the male said in a voice masked by a modulator. "They did survive, and lucky us too, we would get a promotion for the capture of 4 Jedi…" he looks at me and Serenity. "Well, 2 and 3 quarters. The boy has no mirth."

"What?" I say out loud.

"Yes dear brother," the female said, wait…. I know them. "No mirth, but he sure is cute." Yup, I know them.

"Ok, you can cut the act now," I say stepping forward.

"Morty!" My mom and Summer shout, but Ren just raises an eyebrow.

"I know that you two are the twin transfer students who transferred to my school back on Earth."

They look at each other, and then they pressed a button on the side of their visor mask. The top part slid back, and then down, finally the mask split in two and slid back like an automatic door at the supermarket. And they revealed their scaly green faces to us. "How did you know my dear boy?" The brother asked.

"Who else talks like that?" I say back.

"Hmm…. Fair enough," said and reached for his back. He brought out a half circle connected by a hilt, and sparked up a red beam. His sister reached for her hip and brought out a full circle and sparked up a red beam from both sides.

"Too bad it won't do you any good," she said. "But before we capture you-"

"I would rather kill them," her brother said.

"Before we kill you, you should know our names. I am the Sister Mileena-"

"And I am the Brother Talzan-"

"And we're the Inquisitors," they said at the same time.

Ren and Master Ramuh stepped in front of me, Ka Ramuh moving more to the left, and Ren to the right. Master Ramuh took out his lightsaber and sparked up the green blade and took a stance like I did on the ship, wide feet, blade level. Ren on the other hand, took out both of his lightsabers, bringing them from his sides and activating them, one red in his left hand and one purple in his right, and brought them out wide. Then with a flourish whipped them around, and the came up as so; his stance became low, the red blade in a reverse hand grip where it runs the length of his left arm, and his purple blade was held high, parallel to the ground. "Jerry, Beth, kids?" He said, voice tense. "Get inside and tell R-6 to fire up the engines, and to take off. We'll be there shortly."

There was a another sound of a lightsaber being activated. Serenity stood next to Master Ramuh, only one blade activated on her lightsaber staff, and is held in a reverse hand grip. She stood straight, arm out slightly, and her head slightly forward. "Serenity," Ramuh said, "go in the ship. While I don't doubt your skills, you need to keep the others safe."

"I am not leaving your side Master, I feel the Dark side in them, it's strong."

I looked from her, to my family, looking scared and half angry on my dad's part. I sighed, slid off my auto rifle and handed it roughly to Summers chest, she grabbed it with an 'oof!' and I walked next to Ren, taking out my practice saber, setting it on it's highest kill setting and activating it.

"Morty?" Ren said, a little surprise in his voice. "Ok, while I do doubt your skills, you need to keep your family safe."

I ignored that and said, "Dad, get R-6 and do what Ren said for you to do. We'll be there shortly."

"Oooh," Mileena said. "He thinks he's a threat," she made a gesture with her left hand and her visor slid back into place. "How cute," she said through her voice synthesizer. Then she leapt forward, the mechanism in her lightsaber making it spin.

"Serenity, the girl!" Master Ramuh said as he made a beeline for the brother, he leapt over her running form, and came down running as he and Ren faced the boy. Me and Serenity went to meet the girl.

Serenity struck first, using her style of blade work knocked the spinning blades back, I jumped in and tried to stab her, but she was acrobatic, did a matrix like limbo move and dodged it, then she used her leg to kick me. I went back a few feet, falling on my butt. When I looked up I saw the sister try to pounce on me, but Serenity was there in an instant, using her reversed grip saber to deadlock it, the tip of the red blade just inches from my face, I could feel the searing heat coming off of it in waves, and smell the ozone like smell of the ions. She tried to angle it away from me, but doing so made her own blade move towards me.

"Get, back," She grunted.

"What?" Came the reply of the sisters synthetic voice.

"Morty, get back!" Serenity then activated her second end of her staff. Through the light I can see through visor her, and see eyes widen in shock, and, fear? as the blade just misses centimeters from her face, cutting through the side of her helmet. I quickly scrambled back, and just in time too, she maneuvered her blade in an elegant twirl, cutting off a piece of her helmet, and deflecting her blade as well.

Serenity's stance didn't change much, though, she handled her blades a little gracefully, as if putting on a show.

"Are you alright Morty?" she asked. I nodded an 'uhuh' and got up, taking a stance next to her, and worked on putting myself in the Force. "Good, now, let's do this."

The battle took no time at all to finish, and I'm afraid, I wasn't around to see the end of it.

I hacked and slashed at her, but she was there to meet my every move, even with Serenity's help, or really, me just trying to attack the sisters blind spot while she did all the work with her, we were no match.

The sister gave a violent kick to Serenity and she went sailing over me and landed with an 'oof!' somewhere behind me. "Well then," Mileena's synthetic voice. She raised her lightsaber disk, and it started to spin like a saw blade, permitting the air with ozone smelling ions. "Only one cute boy left, well, time to die. Shame too, I was really looking forward to playing with you in ways that would make your toes curl… and not in the good way either." She then leapt forward, bringing her spinning blade up and slashed at me.

Preparing for the end, I find myself not really caring. It's not the first time I was gonna die. So, putting my guard up in a last ditch effort to defend myself, so at least nobody can say that I didn't try, two things happened. One, I heard a 'no!' and felt myself being pulled backwards. And two, the sister slashed across my chest and a searing white hot pain flared through my body.

I hit the ground, and coughed up blood. It came up wet and sticky, and it hurt. I looked up, and tried to sit. I placed a hand on my chest, and flinched back at the feel of charred skin and wet blood and pus leaking through.

"Oww," I groaned/wheezed. "That hurt." Then I heard the clashing sound of lightsaber against lightsaber. I look forward just in time to see the sister kick out Serenity's legs, her falling on her back, and the sister Forcing her saber staff across the port. It sparked as it slid across the ground before coming to a stop and going out.

The sister raised her saber in preparedness to stab Serenity. I felt something inside me snap. White hot anger pushed all the pain out of my body. Everything that happened since Rick left has been boiling up to this point. My anger, my sadness, my rage! But most of all…. My frears. In one move I gathered the Force into my palms and I screamed, "NOOOO!" And pushed with all my might, both physically, and mentally, and directed all that power at Mileena. She 'saw' it coming and flinched at the last second, but couldn't avoid it. She went flying screaming, into a wall, her saber disk skidding across the floor, sparking and cutting the cement all the way, before the blades shrank and disappeared and coming to a stop.

I feel… cold. I fell back, rapidly losing consciousness, everything fading to black. As I was slipping away I thought I could faintly hear someone screaming my name.

Ren's PoV

The battle against the brother was a cake walk. Me and Master Ramuh made short work against him, his makashi form driving him into a corner, and my niman exhausting his inner resources when he finally made his disk function activate and made a double ended spinning saw blade. I cut his saber in half, nearly taking his hand with it, Master Ramuh kneed him in the stomach, he fell over gasping for breath. I then gathered all my strength, and enhanced it more with the Force, deactivated my lightsabers and slammed my fists into the side of his head, crushing his helmet and breaking his mask and visor. I then spun kicked him in the face and he was down for the count.

"Heh heh, still got it," I said to Master Ramuh. If feelorians could blush under all that fur, he was doing it. Then I heard, "NOOO!" and a crash.

Looking back I see the sister flying into a wall from a massive force push, getting embedded in the wall, not unlike a cartoon. But what struck fear into me, is that I can feel the living Force drain rapidly out of-

"MORTY!" Serenity screamed.

I quickly put my sabers on my belt and ran over to him. He was lying on his back, limbs at odd angles, though not broken, and a small pool of his blood was starting to form. He was pale as death, a charred slash going from the bottom right of his ribs to his left shoulder…. And over his heart.

Master Ramuh placed a hand on his forehead. "He's faint… but can be saved," he said gravely. "But we need to be quick."

Just then the Phantom Spirits engines start up. "We have med packs on board, and we can flash clone some skin to graph on, right?"

"Oh, most certainly," Master said. "But I cannot stress how time is of the utmost-"

"Just get on with it!" I shout at him.

He is taken back, but picks up Morty anyway and makes his way to the ship anyway. "Come Serenity, I need your help." She nods and follows, though a bit shaky on her feet. She grabs her saber staff with the Force and continues onto the ship.

I'm shaking. I haven't felt this much anger and fear since… since my own dark times. I can feel the brush with the Dark side. Filling my veins with its intoxicating poison, fogging up my mind and eating at my soul, the very culmination of my being. I hear groaning. I look to where the sister made an impact.

I start my way to her, I take in my left hand the red saber, I didn't even think about it, i just instinctively grabbed for it. She saw me coming. I sparked it to life. 'Pssssssss-vvvvmmmmm' it goes. I can sense her fear, it brings satisfaction to me, knowing that she's about to watch me kill her. As I was nearing her, I level the blade with her neck, she's 3 feet off the ground, a good 2 feet above my head. Just one upward thrust and she'd be done, she would have paid for what she did to Morty, for making me break my promise.

…. "No," I say out loud. I didn't spend 15 years learning to control my Darkness just for it to creep back up now. I take a deep breath, closing my eyes and opening them, renewed determination set in my mind, pushing back the Darkness, at least for now.

"No," I say again. I deactivate the lightsaber and put it away. I can feel her confusion. I speak plainly and clearly to her, "You're gonna let us go, and we're gonna go back home, to Earth."

She raised an eyebrow, and started to laugh. "And what makes you think that we won't go back and blow you up from orbit?"

I reached out with my right hand and pulled her down. "Because it'll amuse the both of us," I told her, smiling sinisterly. Hey, I'm pissed, what can I say? So I say this, "I know you lizogorians, you can never turn down a challange."

"Oh?" She said. "And what challenge are you issuing?"

"One of this, I know how you're ancestors use to hunt, cat and mouse, am I correct?" She nods, "Of course I am. We play, cat and mouse. Morty said that you go to school with him, undercover right?" Another nod. "Well, don't tell the Federation that you know who we are, you didn't see our faces, you couldn't get a reading from our ship, and every time you tried to enter our ship, the droid on board would start the self destruct sequence on the ship. We all go home, and you get to play cat and mouse with me and Morty at school. The first one to break, wins. You try to 'kill' us domestically, and we'll do the same. Deal?"

"You drive a hard bargain Mr. Dealer of Death. Deal, I'll let my brother know as soon as he wakes up."

I nod to her, and walk back to my ship. As I do she says, "Just watch out for my fleet! I would hate to not play with you two." I close the hatch and go to the common room, Morty is laid out, shirt cut off, revealing a diagonal line of charred flesh and pussing sinue. Master Ramuh is working his 'magic' on him by healing his cells by targeting the midichlorians within his cells. Serenity was taking skin samples from him and using the mobile flash cloner to make a skin graph.

Just then, Jerry come in and steps over Morty and Ramuh, his concussion rifle in his arms, and he aimed it right at me. "What did you do to my son!?" He yelled right in my face. I didn't answer and kept walking. "I've been waiting for my chance to do this for a long ti-" He didn't finish.

I reached out with the Force and choked him. Lifting him off the ground he dropped his gun, and I walk with him levitating aloft. "I'm going to take off now. Summer, help Master Ramuh with your brother."

"W-what are you doing to-"

"Your dad is on time out, I'm just putting him in his room. Help Master Ka, he's the best at healing, but I need Serenity on the guns. Come along now." Barely containing my anger, I walk with Jerry aloft and set him in his room. "Now, stay there, and think about what you've done."

"Y-you can-can't just-" he tried to gasp out.

"And think on this. You're son is out there dying, and now you've lost the privilege to go and be by his side. All because you couldn't let it go." I slam the door on his face and lock it from the outside.

I go into the cockpit with Serenity taking copilots seat. Once in space we see 3 cruisers. They spot us, as evident because launched the fighters. "There they are, right where she said they'd be…" I mutter. "Get on that gun," I tell her and flip the switch to bring up the controls. She goes to them and I fire up the hyperdrive and punch in the cooridnance to Earth. "Hang on," I say. "We don't have to fight."

"What?" She says exasperated. "Why not?"

"Because we're facing the wrong way from Earth," I say with a chuckle. I quickly turn in the opposite direction of the star ships and the oncoming fighters.

"You are still a scatterbrain, Ren," she says chuckling, and I can feel more than hear the tears starting to fall. I know that she's been through a lot, but this one must have been up there.

I finish putting in the coorinance and started to prime the hyperdrive. "I know, Serenity." The drive finishes priming, and I hit the lever that activates the hyperdrive. "I know," I say as the stars elongate into the tunnel of visible hyperspace, and we make the jump back home.

Morty's PoV

The first thing I feel…. is coldness. Though, not usual cold, like the absence of heat, but coldness… on the inside. Like, someone dumped a bucket of icewater in my heart and it pumped the coldness though my veins.

But then, I open my eyes, and it disappears.

I'm back in my room…. And I'm naked. I sit up in my bed, the blanket falling off of my chest, and pulls in my lap. I shiver in the sudden brisk of the room's temperature. I remember everything. I feel my chest and grimace at the pain. It stings, but, it feels whole. I look down and see pink flesh, feels kind of like baby skin when I get past the pain.

I get up on wobbly feet, the blankets falling off my naked body. I feel weak, like I haven't eaten in awhile. My stomach does feel empty.

I quickly gathered some underwear and my usual shirt. Once I was decent I slowly made my way down to the kitchen. As I pass the kitchen however I am greeted with a "Morty!" I look in the living room to see mom, Ren, Master Ramuh, Serenity and Summer all sitting there.

"Uh, hey guys," I say until I am tackled by Serenity. "Ow!" I gripe out.

The rest crowded around me. "Uh," I said. "I'm really hungry."

Later

"So," I say through a mouth full of burger. "You're saying that *gulp* you pretty much made school a chessboard of death, am I right?"

"Uh, pretty much, yeah," Ren said looking down.

"And I've been passed out all weekend?"

"Yup," Serenity chimed in.

"Ok…. Not the strangest thing to happen to me, but, how did I survive?"

"That would be my doing," Chimed in Master Ramuh. "I've been pretty gifted with healing abilities in the Force. But I did have to flash clone some skin to graph to your chest, and used quite a few medpacks to stabilize your vitals. But you did lose a lot of blood, so, you were pretty out of it too."

"Ok…. I just have one more question-"

"Just one," Ren snorted.

"Ok, just one for now," I said chuckling.

"Shoot," he said.

"Why was I naked?"

They don't say anything for a bit. I noticed Serenity blushing a bit, but I pretend not to notice.

" Like we said, you were out of it for the past 3 days," Ren said. "We told the school you came down with the flu on Friday, but we couldn't get you to wake up or function properly. And, we didn't have any diapers in your size." Summer laughs a bit at this. "So we just figured that we sponge bath you and change your sheets every day."

"Well… I did smell lemon pledge when I woke up."

"That would be the cleaners we used on your mattress and carpet."

"Ah, ok…. So, what now?"

Ren didn't say anything, then, "Follow me."

He took us to the sub lab under the garage. "What's in here?" I asked. Master Ramuh and Serenity were down here with us, he kept my mom and Summer upstairs, said it was a Jedi thing. "I thought he Federation took everything?"

"Oh Morty, poor, sweet, innocent naive little Morty," he's openly mocking me now. He then went over to a corner and slid open a panel, he pressed a button and a wall slid forward and an elevator was revealed. "You give your grandpa too little credit. He built a temple under the house just in case I ever came around and needed a place to think, train or bring up a student…." He stepped into the elevator, the other Master and other Apprentice did as well. I followed. "You asked what happens next?"

"No, I asked what now," I said.

"Now? Well, now, we train." The elevator door slid closed, and we went down.

End chapter 3

A/N: Well, didn't get it for Christmas, but new years is only 6/7 days after. Well, some explanations. I wanted the space ship to be modern, so a jet like look and the X-jet came to mind. I also wanted to have it a mix between the Millenium Falcon and the Ghost from Star Wars Rebels. So, the Phantom Spirit came to mind. Also, this story is gonna have some MAJOR Jerry bashing in it. I just find that guy…. Irredeemable, and more than a major asshole. Plus, on a personal note, I had a stepfather named Jerry, he was a total cunt, ended up leaving my mom for some brawd he managed to knock up 5 years ago…. While they were still together. So, yeah, I'm more than projecting my feelings onto this a bit. And as for the 20,000 words, I only managed to get 17,081, so, that's for the delay as well. 20,000 is a lot to write about. So, my Star vs the Forces of Evil fanfic will continue, I'll try to get a chapter of that up within the next two days. No promises, and the lemon chapter for the chapter after next for that as well. Oh, and, happy new years. *Boop!*