Disclaimer: Anything you recognize belongs to George Lucas/Disney. Anything you don't recognize probably also belongs to them.
Also, to avoid anyone feeling mislead by the listed chapter length, there is an approximately 865 word author's note at the end. The chapter itself is around 6,000 words long on its own.
Conditioning
Luke awoke to darkness and a dead cold that made the very marrow in his bones ache. Sluggishly his mind pieced together the coherence to wonder how he hadn't frozen to death.
A feminine laugh echoed quietly near him, and he tried pathetically to look around himself to find the source. "Poor child," the voice sing-songed mockingly. He knew that voice. It was...
Fly-away blonde hairs poking out from under a winter hat. A sun-deprived hand with malicious intent, and a confusingly kind smile despite her betrayal.
Mercurial grey eyes with even more volatile mood-swings.
"You again," he mouthed silently, and he wasn't sure if he had no voice because of the temperature, or that man. He shivered painfully.
"Me again," she agreed aloud, before her familiar figure coalesced out of nothing and glowed softly against the blackness.
"What..." he mouthed soundlessly, and this time going by her expression he could tell that it wasn't just the cold.
She was grinning so widely he thought it might split her face open, and she would start bleeding.
It would serve her right.
"What indeed," she mocked, then tilted her head in a feline manner that reminded him of Irys. "You know it's not really that cold, right?" She wagged her finger at him as if he had the voice to protest her statement, "And I don't just mean because you're from some planet with two local stars. Honestly, I would have thought you might have noticed by now, since you're actually frustratingly observant for someone so untrained..." she mused aloud. "Then again, I guess we were distracting you a bit with the whole killing your comrades thing," she shrugged with a wry smile.
Up until the final comment, Luke was looking at her like she was insane, then his anger simmered to life. Now that part of him knew to pay attention, the room seemed to warm, and he gasped in shock. The consequential distraction from his anger made the temperature plummet again.
No. He stared at her in denial. No way.
She grinned, "See, I knew you caught on to things quickly." She took up an almost scholarly expression, "The Dark Side, in its unused base state, is generally considered to be cold. Of course, there are exceptions, but in this case it's quite true."
No. Nonono.
"There's something not right here…" Luke said hesitantly as he stood, still covered in sweat from the humidity and heat of Dagobah. "I feel cold…" a shiver ran down his spine, and he trailed off then whispered, "Death."
Yoda pointed to an opening that was partially obscured by a tree, "That place... is strong with the Dark Side of the Force. A domain of evil it is. In you must go."
It was the same.
She continued on, ignoring his obvious distress, "Because Allyuen is so cold naturally it's much harder to notice, even for the well trained. Really, it's an amazing camouflage – completely fascinating to be honest." Her eyes seemed to glow silver in her intellectual fascination, then she grinned sharply, "It also makes for quite the trap." She gestured around him in an almost dramatic fashion, "Congratulations, you've accidentally landed yourself in a Dark Side Nexus."
Wait, what?
The woman looked him over then snorted derisively and dropped her arms, "You have no idea what that means, do you? In fact, you really don't seem to know much at all." She shook her head in disgust, turned away from him, and began to pace, "What idiot started training you and didn't finish? Raw talent is nothing without experience! They better be dead. At least that would be a good reason." She glanced over at him, and apparently read the negative in his expression, "Fan-freaking-tastic. That's one plan down the drain." Luke watched warily as she yanked the hat off of her head and threw it at the ground with a curse. It was obvious to him that she was getting worked up as he watched her run her hands through her hair jerkily and mutter to herself in agitation. After a brief moment she whipped back around and pointed at him, "This is such banthashit! How in the hells am I supposed to work with this?! Our first chance in who even knows how long, and we get this!"
She twisted her hand and Luke was suddenly slammed against a wall before he was lifted by an invisible grip around his neck, the rough stone scraping painfully against him. Instinctively Luke scrabbled uselessly against his throat with his hands, as he gasped for air.
"I should just kill you now," she growled, looking unhinged with her hand outstretched in front of her like a claw, and despite the fact that she was in the process of killing him, or maybe because of it, he felt his mind drift like it had during the meeting at the beginning of all of this...
An eerie black container split open with a hiss, as its interlocking parts separated like blunted teeth, to reveal a brightly lit white inside that contrasted starkly with the figure it contained. "What is it, General?" a deep baritone boomed amid familiar machine-made hissing breaths.
The General - Veers, something niggling at the back of his mind seemed to say - stood nervously, but spoke with the clipped professionalism of the military, "My Lord, the fleet has moved out of lightspeed. Com-scan has detected an energy field protecting an area of the sixth planet of the Hoth System. The field is strong enough to deflect any bombardment."
This was the man that had lead the attack on Hoth...
Luke's eyes narrowed, even as the ghost of Vader's temper started to swirl through the Force around him, "The Rebels are alerted to our presence. Admiral Ozzel came out of lightspeed too close to the system."
This time when the General spoke it was with obvious hesitation, "He... he felt surprise was wiser…"
At the General's words his father's Force presence spiked and twisted wildly.
Incompetence.
Despite the maelstrom that Luke could feel seething around his father, the Sith's words came out flat, barely betraying the true level of his anger at all, "He is as clumsy as he is stupid! General... prepare your troops for a surface attack."
It was clear that the General had a good sense of self-preservation, because after a quick, "Yes, my Lord," he made his way from the rom.
Luke watched in morbid fascination as the intimidating figure of his father turned, and a screen on the wall flickered to life to show an Admiral and a Captain. The two appeared startled, but quickly recovered themselves, before the Admiral stepped forward and spoke, "Lord Vader, the fleet has moved out of lightspeed -"
The fires of his father's Force presence seemed to sharpen, and Luke stopped listening to what was being said. He knew what was coming, even as the air seemed to shift around him.
He had seen the Sith Lord do this once before, though the realization that he could do it over this much distance was staggering…
So strong.
On-screen Ozzel froze mid-sentence and began to gasp and clutch at his throat.
(Just like Luke in this very moment.)
Pathetic.
"You have failed me for the last time, Admiral!" his father boomed with morbidly ironic dryness. Luke could almost taste the contempt Vader held for the man.
Insignificant, WEAK worm.
The conversation continued, but Luke could only look at the dying ex-Admiral as he gasped like a fish helplessly.
Did he look like that right now?
The ex-admiral collapsed out of view, as Luke watched unable to look away.
Pitiful.
Weak.
He was abruptly yanked back into the present.
Pathetic.
There was no way he was going to die like that. Luke may not be as strong as Ben, much less Yoda, or his father, but this was just pitiful.
Frustration and anger at himself and the entire situation built in him, and oh, now that he knew what to look for, the room really did seem much warmer.
It felt so NICE after being so cold.
He glowered at the woman, and for a moment all he could think of was making her hurt.
Before he could do much more than think that, the invisible grip around his neck began to tighten in increments as she started to go through with her threat. It was enough to distract him from the increasing temptation to use the darkness that seemed to come so easily here.
No. He couldn't do that...
He still had people counting on him. He had to control himself.
The temperature seemed to fluctuate around him and he realized he felt endless little hooks of what had to be Darkness writhing against him – some which were already firmly embedded, a distant part of him noticed with worry – before his ability to breathe was completely cut off. He decided he would have to panic about that later because there wasn't anything he could do about it while he was being strangled.
With a stubbornness that came from growing up on a planet that could barely sustain life, Luke focused on surviving without losing himself in the process.
With an increasing level of calm that ironically came from his steady loss of oxygen he managed to pull the Force to himself, but to his distant frustration he couldn't do anything with it as his body began to feel heavy.
He absolutely refused to die like this. It was pathetic.
A jumbled up mixture of stubbornness, frustration, desperation, worry, defensiveness, and aggravation swelled in him, and the Force that he had gathered to himself exploded forward in a barely controlled push that sent the female flying backward like a ragdoll.
Without pausing to think he dove after her and pinned her to the ground, with his robotic hand wrapped firmly around her throat, as he finally gasped in enough air to fill his burning lungs.
She laughed.
It started as a low chuckle, and escalated into a wild shrill cackle as Luke watched disturbed. Her shoulder-length blonde hair framed her fair face in tangles and unwashed greasy strands as her expression twisted from her previous volatile anger into crazed mania. Her eyes were the most disquieting change of all, because unlike when she had pinned him to the floor during the ambush, there were unnatural and sickly yellow splotches spread across the previously solid grey of her irises.
He had never seen anything like it.
Luke shifted uncomfortably beneath her gaze, illogically wanting to let her go in favour of getting very far away. Instead, he swallowed down his unease and tightened his grip pointedly, before he glared at her since he had no way to vocalize his demands.
Her laughter died abruptly though her eyes gleamed at him in amusement, "I can see why The Marauder likes you. So much conflict. It's a wonder you are not a darkling already with how untrained you are..." The yellow seeped out of her eyes and she looked at him with an academic, and perhaps even awed, fascination, "Yes. The Force sings so beautifully for you." She shifted and her expression slipped into something akin to jealousy, "Light or Dark, both would kill to have you I think." She lifted her hand as if he didn't have her in a loose stranglehold and brushed it against Luke's cheek, much more wistfully than the first time when she had ambushed him, "I wonder..."
After a moment she snatched her hand back and appeared to chastise herself, "I suppose it doesn't matter. He wants you tested, and he has always been strongest of us." She sighed, clearly resigning herself to something before her expression went flat, "A Dark Side Nexus is a place that is so heavily steeped in the Dark Side that it essentially becomes its own source of it. In many cases they are made when Dark Siders are killed and their essence saturates the area of their death. The strength and size of a that type of nexus varies depending on the strength and number of the deceased."
The woman's empty expression broke for a moment as she laughed wryly at her own comment, and Luke felt unease creep up his spine. "Allyuen in particular was the location of one of the many temples and academies of a Dark sect a thousand years ago," she continued on, resuming the same flat tone as before. "It was eventually abandoned and went unfound for centuries, but by the time of its abandonment, hundreds had already died while training there. Fortunately, over time, tectonic activity caused the entire abandoned compound to slide into a massive fault, unreachable from the outside, and thus contained."
Luke blinked in recognition. The mining facility was near a canyon.
Upon seeing his expression, the female nodded as much as she was able in her position, "For a while the planet was largely untouched, and eventually the tectonic activity settled. Then one day miners came to Allyuen in hopes of turning a profit by mining chromite. Everything went fine for decades, though the mining wasn't as good as everyone had hoped. Time passed peacefully, but unfortunately this facility dug too deep one day, and broke through to an ancient tunnel that it shouldn't have," the blonde woman smirked. "After that, hardly any of the residents escaped, and the ones that did never came back." She shrugged awkwardly beneath Luke's grasp, "A lot of mining facilities were getting abandoned at the time, so no one took notice of one more, even if entire families disappeared without a trace." She met his eyes darkly, "It's a big galaxy. A hundred or so working-class sentients weren't going to be missed."
A creeping horror began to snake its way through Luke's mind as he began to make connections. If hundreds of partially or fully trained Darksiders had died on Allyuen, then that would make a massive "nexus" if this woman was telling the truth (and he was inclined to believe she was). It didn't explain what happened to the miners though, unless... Luke looked down at the woman with a mixture of dread and desperation.
Surely not.
She smiled knowingly, "Funny thing about Dark Side Nexuses: the stronger one is, the more it is able to effect the environment, and those in it. Especially if they're Force Sensitive."
With no warning Luke was holding air as his hand reflexively clamped down on nothing. Her laughter echoed around him as he looked around blindly, before her voice seemed to echo inside his head, "Remember to use your anger if you don't want to freeze. Just because it's not actually cold doesn't mean it can't kill you."
Luke felt a warm gust of air against his neck, and shivered at the contrast, as her voice continued with a more serious tone, "Everything is real here, even if it's not. Remember that."
Then Luke was alone in a pitch black space with no voice, and no idea where he was aside from knowing he was a few feet from a wall.
The frigid Dark crawled against his skin, and now that he knew what it was he could feel the slightest prickling against his skin as it tried to find something to latch onto.
So very different from the Light's radiant warm caress, but not an entirely unpleasant feeling.
Dread seeped into his core and Luke shuddered – only half from the cold – as he was torn between curling in on himself in despair, and laughing bitterly at the unfairness of it all.
A chill wracked painfully through his body, and his survival instincts kicked in.
Okay, so anger apparently created warmth here. He could feel emotions without using them though, couldn't he? Just like Wedge had said.
He could only hope that was the case. He hadn't ever tried to deliberately focus on his anger before, so he wasn't sure what would happen. He frowned in thought, even as another shiver racked his frame; it would probably be safer to start with a weaker emotion as a test. If he could at least get away with avoiding anger he would feel better about the whole thing.
With more than a little trepidation he focused on his frustration about the entire situation.
Trapped on an ice desert planet, miles underground, with a force-damned sandstorm dancing on their heads...
To his relief the room warmed slightly, and really Luke should probably have stopped there, but it was still uncomfortably cold, and now that he was thinking about everything it was really hard to stop.
The fake Captain's disrespect and lies, the betrayal, his DEAD comrades by battle and treachery.
Liquid heat seemed to blossom inside him and spread through his icy body.
Luke swore the Force purred.
It was that disturbing realization more than anything, that allowed him to snap out of his steadily declining train of thought and refocus on nothing stronger than his frustration.
The temperature dropped back down again, but not quite as far as it had been initially. Even so, Luke involuntarily whimpered at the loss.
Horrified at his reaction, he forced himself to breathe steadily.
It was just the loss of the warmth after being so cold.
He stubbornly ignored exactly how pleasant the questing tendrils of darkness had felt when they didn't feel like ice.
This was just a way to keep himself from freezing.
A means to an end.
Luke quickly checked himself for any supplies he might use, but at some point during his unconsciousness someone had taken everything he had. He mentally cursed in frustration.
He was blind, defenseless, still unable to speak, and on top of it all, even under normal circumstances Luke didn't trust himself to deliberately use the Force for anything when his control on his emotional state was tenuous. Now that he was going against all of Yoda's teachings and focusing on his negative emotions deliberately, it was especially true.
Luke sighed as he forced himself to stand up shakily and fumble his way blindly over to the wall he had been slammed into. Once he reached it he frowned to himself in added frustration; if he couldn't use the Force to figure out where to go, then one direction was just as good as the other. After a moment he shook his head in annoyance and picked a direction at random. He just hoped he wasn't going the wrong way.
=-.-=
Luke wasn't sure how long he had been walking blindly with the temperature ebbing and flowing in sync with his fluctuating emotions. It was harder than he had realized to constantly keep himself in a perpetual state of deliberately provoked annoyance. Too much, and is started to become full-blown anger; too little and he grew apathetic, which made the cold flood back in. He found himself constantly having to come up with little things in his life that upset him, digging further back as more time passed just for new material to pick at.
It was unpleasant reliving fragments of his life that he didn't like, and the realization that Darksiders probably had to do this on a continuous basis with things that angered them wasn't lost on him. Apparently for them, the past could never simply stay in the past, which probably meant that forgiveness was nearly impossible.
The fact that he was so easily able to latch onto things that he was still bitter about even months or years after the fact definitely wasn't worrying at all. Holding a grudge was a completely normal thing.
Looking back on it sometimes, Luke realized that meeting the self-styled "Ben" Kenobi while he was likely concussed probably went a long way towards his willingness to listen to his short explanation about the Force with any level of consideration when it was first brought up...
.
..
.
...Because maybe if Old Man Kenobi had put more effort into explaining how the different sides of the Force work instead of showing off to an ignorant farm-boy, and being deliberately vague before he died, Luke wouldn't be in the situation he was in now...
His frustration at his current situation kicked up a notch and with it came that glorious warmth that sank into his very bones...
He dug further.
=-.-=
In the middle of a lovely bit of embittered reminiscing Luke tripped over something and would have fallen flat on his face, had he not thrown out his right hand to catch himself. The connection between his false hand and his flesh throbbed painfully from the impact, and he grit his teeth in increased irritation. The now-familiar heat increased inside of him. He hadn't felt this clumsy since before Dagobah, given how easily the Force came to him by instinct on a normal basis. He felt stifled, and he had no one to blame but himself and his inability to safely draw on the Force because of his temper.
A temper that just so happened to be preventing him from freezing.
The entire situation was absolutely infuriating.
Whatever it was that he tripped over moved, quickly snapping Luke out of his emotional slide as he scrambled backward. After a moment whatever became whoever as he heard a very humanoid moan. "Who's there?" Luke mouthed instinctively, but nothing came out.
And when would he stop being surprised by that?
The voice moaned again, before the being spoke in a familiar male voice, "Ow. What the hells hit me? Damn it's dark in here..."
Luke distantly heard the sound of fumbling, but he was still stuck on the owner of the voice. Luke's carefully cultivated aggravation drained away, and it was suddenly as if he had never been warm in the first place.
What in the hells was Wedge doing down here?!
A small portable light turned on, and Luke stared at the partially obscured features of his wing-man in the weak lighting.
"Luke?" the man asked in confusion, and Luke nodded hesitantly.
The dark haired man beamed and lunged forward to wrap Luke into a hug, "Oh man, it's good to see your face! Where have you been?! We were looking all over for days!"
Luke froze, and stared at the man in disbelief.
Days.
There was no way, was there? He had been knocked out twice, but still...
Wedge held him out at arm's length and looked at him in concern. Luke shrank under his gaze uncertainly as shivers started to wrack his body. Under his friend's discerning eyes, it was suddenly much harder to find the irritation necessary to keep himself warm.
Shameful.
"Luke?" Wedge asked in response to Luke's lingering silence, "Are you okay?"
The obvious answer was no, but Luke pointed shakily at his lips deliberately and shook his head to indicate he couldn't talk instead of answering the question.
He missed the warmth, and just admitting that to himself added to his mounting guilt.
Thankfully this managed to successfully divert Wedge's attention, "You... you can't talk?" Wedge asked uncertainly, and Luke nodded jerkily. "How in the stars... Never mind, we need to find the others. The Captain will be wondering where I am... Now if I could just remember how I got here..."
The Captain.
Luke tensed at the amount of glorious heat that flooded him at the simple offhanded mention. As if "The Captain" had his well-being in mind.
This was wrong.
Luke violently shoved the male away from him, making the small light clatter across the rough stone floor.
Luke briefly looked at his own outstretched hands in horror, but quickly shook his head in determination. There was no way that was Wedge. This was just like that imposter.
Before the older male could recover, Luke had him pinned to the floor, much like he had the woman earlier. Luke's expression twisted into a snarl as the Darkness picked against his weakening defences.
"Luke?!" absolutely-not-Wedge choked out. "What are you... doing? This isn't… you! You need… calm… down!"
Luke twitched at the plea, then looked away and forced himself to take a deep breath. After a moment, he turned and looked down at the man with cold steely eyes. He loosened his grip marginally.
Definitely-not-Wedge gasped in a lung-full of oxygen, "Luke, what the hells, man?"
There was so much Luke wanted to demand of him, but he couldn't say a single thing. His frustration grew.
As he scowled dangerously down at his captive, Luke saw the man look at him searchingly before his expression softened. Luke suddenly felt nausea as swept through him. That expression was so very typical of his wing-man that he was hard-pressed to see the stranger behind it that he expected.
This wasn't Wedge... right?
To Luke's mounting dismay, the man smiled awkwardly, "It's alright, Luke. Whatever's wrong, we'll figure something out, okay?"
Luke immediately let go of the man and scrambled away. It was Wedge. Had to be.
What had he done?!
Luke flexed the robotic substitution for his lost hand, and wasn't it funny that he still felt warm?
Because right now he despised himself.
Wedge shifted around with a groan, and levered himself up off of the ground before he walked over and held out his hand to Luke calmly, "Come on, let's go."
Luke hesitantly took the offered hand.
(How was the man STILL able to trust him so easily after what had happened? Luke could only beat himself up more.)
Once the two were standing Wedge leaned over and pick up the dropped light. They began to walk in silence.
(If Luke was already such a terrible friend anyway, what did it matter what he had to do to stay warm? It was hardly like he could be any worse.)
Now that he was able to see slightly, Luke looked around at their surroundings as they continued forward, and his skin crawled as he took in ancient carvings and decaying decadence. This must be the compound that the woman had spoken of, though he had no idea how he had gotten there, much less...
"I don't remember seeing this stuff before I woke up..." Wedge broke the silence, and his wary voice followed Luke's unspoken train of thought. "Do you think someone moved me?"
Luke frowned uncertainly and shrugged. It was as likely as any answer he could come up with.
A noise clattered ahead of them, and Luke tensed warily before he looked at Wedge.
The other male shrugged and whispered, "Maybe it's part of the search party?"
Luke looked at the man doubtfully. Even if this really was Wedge that he was walking through ruins with, he absolutely refused to believe that the Darksider "Captain" had any sort of good intentions. Something was very wrong with this situation, even now.
Especially now.
They continued forward more carefully than before, but there was nothing they could do about their light giving them away. It was darker than pitch without it, and they couldn't deal with that sort of disadvantage.
After several long moments of quiet in which Luke had to fight with his emotions to remain warm, the two reached an atrium of sorts, and stepped inside. Their footsteps echoed around the large space, and Luke squinted, but most of the space remained in shadow. A scrambling noise echoed from somewhere in the room, and at first Luke thought it might have been some sort of rodent until a nearly stifled giggle echoed across the space.
"Who's there?" Wedge demanded, and Luke wanted to clap his hand over the man's mouth, because surely whoever they were wouldn't answer, and Wedge calling out would only give whoever it was an advantage. Instead, Luke settled for glaring, and the older man shrugged apologetically, "What? Sometimes it works, and they already know where we are any—"
"Foolish humans shouldn't have come here," a young voice called out, proving Wedge's point, then the voice – likely female – giggled again. This time it was met with the laughter of others.
Luke tensed, and took a step back toward the passage he and Wedge had just left. This was bad. Neither of them had weapons, and by the amount of laughter they were clearly outnumbered.
This was very bad.
A young rodian clad in a clothing style that hadn't been common in several decades stepped forward into view, and smiled mischievously, "The Lady says you're here to play with us. Are you really?" Several other younglings of varying ages stepped forward to join her, some wearing similar or more recent styles, others wearing darkly coloured training garments or ceremonial robes
Wedge looked at Luke uncertainly, "I don't know what's going on, but they're just younglings."
Luke shook his head sharply, almost frantic as he tried to get his point across wordlessly. No. They might have been once, but if his suspicion was correct, then these children shouldn't even be alive still. No normal children would be this far underground here, wearing those clothes, and he recognized that sickly yellow shade in some of their eyes.
It was unmistakeable, and seemed to glow despite the low lighting from their pitiful light source.
Cold that was entirely related to his sudden inability to hold onto any level of aggravation, much less anger, trickled down Luke's spine as his instincts screamed.
Wrong. Wrong. RUN.
It took more willpower than he had expected to remain still. Even if he and Wedge did run, logic told him it would be useless.
Wedge took one look at Luke's expression, before he turned warily to face the group that was slowly creeping closer to them, "Um... We don't really have time to play..." he trailed off weakly, then seemed to gather himself. "We're actually looking for the people we came here with if..." here Wedge swallowed as he realized he had painted himself into a corner while pretending to be friendly. "If you want to come with us while we look you can." Luke wanted to curse.
These weren't lost children that needed help finding their way!
The statement was met with a rash of whispering, before the ones they could see all smiled at once. The first child spoke again, "Oh no, that won't do at all," she shook her head firmly. "You're going to stay here with us," she added with the sort of gravity that came with the truth.
Luke swore he hadn't even blinked, yet somehow he and Wedge were surrounded by the group and separated abruptly. The light was knocked out of Wedge's hand and clattered to the floor as he and Luke were both lifted up by small but strong hands, and for a moment Luke watched in frozen horror as they started to carry Wedge away.
The moment quickly passed, and he began to struggle wordlessly against numerous arms and hands. He was desperate to get free, but subconsciously unwilling to harm children, even as unnaturally ancient and strong as they seemed to be. It made the already hard task infinitely more difficult.
And he couldn't use the Force here. Wouldn't. It was too dangerous. But…
Where were they taking Wedge?!
The same giggle from earlier whispered against his ear, and he fought harder as the little rodian with misleadingly beautiful eyes that looked like opalescent space at this distance spoke quietly so that only he could hear, "I bet he'll make such a good toy. We get so bored down here, but the Master has taught us the best ways to play!" The excitement in her voice made his skin crawl, and he fought all the harder.
"I wonder what sort of noises he'll make?"
Any reservations Luke had about their child-like appearance evaporated in an instant, as anger crawled dangerously up his throat, and filled his body with tantalizing warmth.
But he absolutely would NOT use it.
With a hard yank, he pulled his right arm toward himself as much as he could, then let the tension in his arm go slack without warning. In the brief moment he had while his captors readjusted to the change, he twisted his arm, grabbed one of their arms and squeezed.
If he could break a holopad, then a couple bones were nothing.
The pained shriek of a child scratched against his nerves, and nearly undid him because the bones didn't just snap; they were crushed and he could feel every bit of it.
Don't think. Just move.
Before the rest of the group was able to react to his partial freedom, he bucked his body, and used the momentum to bring his arm across his body, wrenching it free from a second child, before his fist connected with the sternum of one of his captors on the other side of him. A pained wheeze was combined with an audible crack despite Luke pulling the punch, and the part of him not focusing on freeing himself to get to Wedge cringed.
Now that his upper body was only supported by one child Luke felt his stomach lurch as gravity rose to catch him. He followed through on his swing, and twisted his body until it faced downward before yanking his feet toward himself. The combination of the unexpected weight and his movements had him free, and he crashed to the ground before he scrambled awkwardly to get up.
Actively avoiding the Force was really messing with his ability to do anything.
He stood panting, but found himself surrounded by the silhouettes of even more children, some clearly ranging into their teens. He silently cursed his luck, as he eyed the additional children warily. Apparently more had been hidden in the darkness, and he could still see the first group of shadowy figures clustered where he assumed Wedge was.
He glared at the ones surrounding him and gestured for them to move, sharply telegraphing his anger with the motion.
Don't use it.
The same young rodian, probably the youngest one there he distantly registered, laughed then shook her head, "You're going to have to kill us if you want him human."
Time seemed to slow, and Luke looked around himself. Children or not, if he had been outnumbered before, he definitely was now. If only he could use the Force...
Don't use it...
There had to be another way…
Wedge's voice ripped through the darkness, staining it further with pain as it tore into Luke's conscience. He had to save him.
Don't think. Just MOVE.
Something centrally integral to Luke shifted.
.
..
…
..
.
He didn't even remember making the choice, but even if he had, he wouldn't have expected anything like this.
He looked around himself hollowly at the aftermath of what he might have considered a Force push, had all of the young bodies not still been flying through the air or scraping across the ground.
He had never been able to do much more than gently shove people and things out of his way with a radial push; he hadn't been trained well enough to pull off anything stronger than that without it being more focused in a single direction.
Some of them landed with a crunch that barely registered with him.
This was completely beyond what he could have ever expected.
The difference in power was staggering… it was almost unfair.
.
..
…
..
.
NO.
Time caught up with him and he was looking the silhouettes of at least a dozen broken bodies, all far too small. The image branded itself across his mind, and he collapsed.
How had... this was…he would never... but…
He clenched his hands in front of him, and somehow it felt ironic that they weren't covered with blood.
The Dark Side coiled around him, and that woman was right, it really did seem to be singing. He tried to shove it away, but even so it still clung to him gleefully.
Because in that moment he completely and utterly hated himself.
His stomach rebelled and he emptied its contents on the floor violently.
AN: When I was editing this chapter I realized that I reminded myself of the part in The Lost Boys where David describes what happened to the hotel they live in. Entirely unintentional, but hey, that movie IS awesome. Also, hey look! A throwback to chapter one!
Anyway, I wanted to take a moment to thank all of the people that have left comments or fav'd/followed so far. I kid you not, it brightens my day just seeing the alerts, and reading the comments generally just makes me beam like a kid with a present.
Gushing about you guys aside, gotta love that negative reinforcement with a positive reinforcement spin, am I right?
In all seriousness though… in order to elaborate on SOME of what's going on here, it's time for some Watered Down Psychology with Laz (aka Random Info: The Wall o' Text Version).
For those of you that know about the term Skinner's Box, this will all seem rather familiar. For those of you that are less familiar, it was part of a psychology experiment conducted by one B.F. Skinner, in which he attempted to train rats to respond to different types of stimulus while keeping them in a contained environment with no outside influences (thus the box and experiment's nickname). He called this "Operant Conditioning." Skinner essentially believed that people have zero free will, and that any person could be trained to do anything if given the right stimulus.
For the sake of simplicity and relevance I'm going to focus on explaining Positive and Negative stimulus.
On the positive side of the spectrum, whenever the rats in his experiment pushed a lever they were rewarded… up to a point. Skinner found that the best way to continue receiving the best results from positive reinforcement was to randomize whether or not a reward was received, and to decrease the number of rewards. This worked because there was always that slight possibility of getting that reward. In a way I find it very similar to how addiction works.
On the opposite side of the spectrum there was negative reinforcement. In this environment the box was electrified. The rats would essentially flail around the cage until they hit a lever that turned off the electrical current. Eventually the rats would learn to push the lever immediately to prevent the pain. They could even be trained to respond to a warning stimulus that the electricity was about to start, so that they would push the lever preemptively, thus avoiding the electricity altogether.
Obviously there were plenty of dissenting opinions to his concept of no free will, and to the extent that a person/animal could be trained using stimulus, but that doesn't change the fact that it does work at some levels. We see it every day when we are rewarded for doing something, or learn the best way to avoid a negative result.
Thus bears the question: if a person really was left in a contained environment of reward/prevent… what would the end result be?
With that bit of context, here we have Luke alone in complete darkness with some "friendly" advice claiming that a little bit of negative emotion is the only thing that can keep him from dying. This seems harmless enough; though I'm sure Yoda would be having a conniption fit (and rightly so, because the source of the changes in "temperature" is literally the Dark Side reacting to stimulus and a lack thereof). Luke adapts to the situation's guidelines and becomes perhaps not comfortable, but certainly used to using his emotions to stay warm. It helps that in avoiding freezing to death, he ALSO receives a reward: warmth that is unnaturally pleasant (because, again, it's not truly warmth). Thus we have a bit of positive reinforcement with the negative.
Along comes Wedge, and the status quo is shaken up. Now we have an outside influence that Luke cares about strongly (once Luke decides Wedge really is who he says he is). Luke feels ashamed by his dependence and what he has been doing, BUT he still needs the warmth in order to survive and part of him wants that warmth just because it feels good. The "conditioning" holds up the moment he decides it's no worse than what he has already done, and he forced himself to push past his increasing misgivings and discomfort. In doing so he continues further down that rabbit hole.
Now we have a Luke, who has willingly gone past his unease and shame over using his anger to his advantage, though he still refuses to acknowledge that he is "using" his anger at all. In his stubborn denial he tells himself what he is doing is okay because he's not using the Dark Side, and it's for a good cause: his survival.
The situation is further complicated by his continued guilt over almost harming his friend for the second time, his protective instinct, and his feelings of weak helplessness. By the time that Wedge is finally hurt, using the Dark Side of the Force by instinct for the briefest of moments isn't quite so far of a reach.
He was already halfway there anyway, whether he acknowledged it or not.
Toodles~ ( / ^ ^ )/