Chapter 9
Disclaimer: Its Georges story and it always will be
Anakin woke up slowly. He realised where he was and shut his eyes again. It had dawned on him how much he really didn't want to be there. People with amnesia deserve more of an explanation than 'you are the chosen one so stay where we tell you to'. Anakin sighed and turned his head. He then sensed a familiar presence; in fact he sensed three presences by his bed. He opened his eyes and jumped at the sight of Riley and two others watching him sleep. "Is there a reason for you to be watching me sleep or, are all Jedi this curious?" Anakin asked. He wasn't a morning person, he had just realised that. "Sorry, Ani. This is Nick, and Annabeth. The people I was telling you about, remember?" Riley seemed taken aback by the way Anakin had awoken. "Oh, right. Sorry Riley, I forgot." Anakin apologized as he sat up and looked at the other two. "Pleased to meet you, I'm Anakin." Anakin always introduced himself nicely; he didn't want to get on the wrong side of the wrong person. "Hello, Ani. I'm Annabeth." Annabeth introduced herself. Anakin noticed that she called him Ani also, he felt more comfortable around her for using his shortened name. "I'm Nick, nice to meet you Ani." Nick bumped Anakin's fist for some reason. Anakin did feel comfortable around him, but he didn't know what the fist bumping meant.
"So, how are you doing?" Nick asked. Anakin sat up and realised he must have made them feel a little uncomfortable. "I'm fine, what about you?" Anakin replied. "We're fine, I guess. We have extra lightsaber training in an hour; apparently we're not good enough yet. So we're going to have to have a short meeting." Annabeth told him unhappily. "Riley needs extra practice? After the training on the ship?" Anakin asked in astonishment. "He doesn't need it anymore, lucky idiot." Nick added under his breath. "Well, I'd feel guilty about letting you do extra training without Riley. Since we should get to know one another, I'll practice with you if you want?" Anakin offered. "Alright, thanks. You're our age, but you fight like a veteran." Annabeth commented. Anakin looked away in embarrassment. "It's just because I was using the force to know how to, in fact I woke up knowing how to do it." Anakin felt that they had a right to know how he knew to fight like he did, even though he himself didn't know exactly how. "I doubt I can help you much. But I can try. Shall we?" Anakin asked. They nodded and Anakin retrieved his sabers with the force, they arrived faster than normal and he almost dropped them in surprise. Then he remembered how strong the force was here. He followed them out of his room and out of the section of the temple that had been assigned to Zez-Kai and into an arena like place. The people on the seats surrounding it stopped their conversations to watch Anakin in particular, even though there were other people training.
"You ready Ani?" Nick asked cockily. Anakin smirked as they all ignited their lightsabers and prepared to fight him, Riley whispered warnings to the other two about how good Anakin was. Anakin ignited both his sabers and the other training sessions stopped to watch. Anakin prepared himself and all three of them lunged at him, he parried two attacks and rolled under Nick to dodge his blow. They turned around to face him and Anakin twirled his lightsabers to shift his grip on them. Nick attacked him first, he really was cocky. From the moment of the first blow, Anakin had him easily. Dodge, parry, parry and strike. The first well placed strike knocked his saber from his hands and forced him to back off. Next came Annabeth, she fought with very quick strikes and at first caught Anakin of guard. He locked sabers with her and twirled it out of her hands, using the force to push her away as he did so. Riley looked extremely nervous by now, but Anakin was going to be lenient with him. Plus, Riley had the advantage over the other two. Anakin had trained him slowly, without knocking the saber from his hands.
"It's alright Riley, come on." Anakin told him nicely. Riley was soon convinced to fight him and Anakin parried his attacks and knocked his saber to both sides, he never once removed the saber from Riley's hands and never attacked either. The group of people watching were muttering to one another about Anakin. Word travels fast, he thought to himself. Riley made a brave move at Anakin's legs, which caused a rather humiliating defeat for Riley. Anakin jumped up and front flipped over Riley, as he did this he knocked Riley's saber from his hands and landed facing Riley's back with his one saber pointed at it. Riley froze and turned around slowly. "Better luck next time?" Anakin told him questionably. "I don't think I'm going to beat you for a while Ani." Riley replied as Anakin lowered his sabers.
"Skywalker!" Someone yelled from the entrance, Satele was walking towards him now. Anakin bit his lip, had he done something wrong. "If you want to fight someone, I suggest you fight me. You are a little more skilled than these three don't you think?" She was taunting him to see his level of control. "I think they did alright for a first time." Anakin replied. Satele ignited her sabers and prepared to fight Anakin, who gulped. The only way he would beat them was if he used the force to guide his sabers. Anakin prepared himself in a stance and felt Riley and the others back away, Anakin knew why, they didn't want to get slashed.
Satele was the first to strike, she fought quickly and swiftly. Twirling in every direction as Anakin barely parried her blows, he was certain he would lose. What I need now is to use to force, Anakin thought. But there was no time to push with the force as he was now slowly stepping backwards as he parried each of her blows which came at two a second. Anakin held his breath and pushed forwards, she moved back and Anakin dared to step forwards. She very nearly sliced of his foot as he did so, but luckily he was able to parry the blow. Instead of startling her, I should get one of those lightsabers out of her hand, he thought. Anakin twirled and put all his strength into smacking the saber in her left hand, it fell with a clang to the floor and Anakin pushed with all his might in the force which sent Satele flying across the room. He couldn't risk her getting back the saber so he used the force to lift it into the air and hold it there, he lowered his hand and prepared for another attack, the saber stayed in the air and wouldn't fall unless he told it to.
At first she seemed surprised, but then she charged him again and Anakin ducked under her blow and struck her hard in the side with the hilt of one saber. She doubled over in shock, not pain, and Anakin quickly used the force to disarm her of another saber which joined the other in the air. But her eyes were not on the sabers, they were on Anakin's shoulder. Anakin looked at it also and saw something that startled him. She had hit him there and he had not even felt it in his adrenaline rush, his shoulder stung in pain and Anakin was forced to deactivate his lightsabers to tend to it. As he placed them on his belt, Satele's sabers fell from the air and onto the floor. She picked them up but did not attack; she called for some Jedi healers to help Anakin.
"You certainly have a tolerance for pain." She mused. "But how you didn't feel that, I'll never know." Anakin smiled through the pain and bit his lip when the healers applied a kind of paste to his injury; Anakin's sleeve was split slightly. "At least you can protect yourself, I was going easy on you. But only in my attacks." She added the last part with caution. Anakin must have caught her off guard with his strength in attacking her. Riley came running up to him, closely followed by Nick and Annabeth. "That was so cool!" He yelled in exasperation. "You were losing, and then we all felt this surge in force energy, and you had won! You'd got injured, but you'd won!" Anakin smiled at his excitement. "Well, the surge in the force was me, I admit, but I didn't feel her hit my shoulder. It's strange how I didn't." Annabeth had the answer, Anakin guessed it when she smiled at him. "That's probably due to your adrenaline and being caught up in the fight. You never stop moving for some reason, even when you're not fighting. Look." She pointed at Anakin's legs. He was shifting from side to side as if getting ready for a fight. Anakin moaned in frustration at how well she knew him, he didn't even know him that well.
"We should probably go now; me and Annabeth have to go to extra training. Hopefully we've picked up something from our fight and we can show them that we're not under achievers. Bye now." Nick waved as he left, Annabeth smiled and left without a second glance. "Well Riley, what should we do now?" Anakin asked. "I'm supposed to practice meditating for an hour at least a say. Then I have to practice deflecting blaster bolts and then I can do as I please. As long as it involves something force related." Riley sighed as he finished. Anakin suddenly had a stroke of brilliance. "I'm force related. Literally." Riley was confused for a moment, then he smiled and started laughing quietly. "I guess you are. Let's get back to Zez-Kai. He doesn't like it when one of us gets injured in a fight, but he'll understand, he always does." Riley managed to say through his laughter. Anakin groaned as the healers pushed hard on his injury hard. Riley turned away slightly; Anakin could tell he didn't like watching people in pain. Luckily, Anakin wasn't bleeding badly so Riley wouldn't leave him. Anakin could sense his squeamishness.
"Don't worry about injuries Riley, they always get better. I hope." Anakin tried to comfort Riley, but he kept his gaze away from Anakin's shoulder for the remaining minute that the healers were helping mend it. They didn't seem to be afraid of Anakin's power, maybe now people would stop staring at him. The other training sessions had resumed after a minute of muttering and an order from a Jedi master. Before long, Anakin felt less pain than he had before and he followed Riley out of the training arena and up the many stairs of the Jedi temple. "So, how did it feel fighting Master Shan? It can't of been as embarrassed as I was; I was made to look like a complete idiot." Anakin stopped Riley's negative thoughts by saying "You lasted longer than Nick and Annabeth, and they're older than you. Plus they have to go to extra training sessions. It looked like you had me on the ropes for most of the fight, remember?" Riley tried to find a way around this. "But you were just being nice, weren't you?" Anakin rolled his eyes. "I was going easy on you, I admit. But you're thirteen; don't set your standards too high. I'm almost double your age. Given four more years." Riley had a strange expression reach his face. "I became fourteen today, actually." Anakin couldn't stop himself from blurting out the words "Happy Birthday." The moment after he told Anakin his news. "Jedi do celebrate birthdays don't they?" Anakin asked. "I'm not sure, I never asked." Riley stopped suddenly; Anakin noticed that it was by the door to Zez-Kai's residence. Without another word, Riley disappeared through the door and Anakin followed him. Anakin knew he'd struck a nerve and regretted bringing the subject of ages up. But he did have an idea on how to improve Riley's mood.