The Legion Renewed

Chapter Sixteen

"Again!" Luke demanded.

"I can't!" she wailed.

"Again!" he repeated.

Limply she picked up her lightsaber and swung it at the seekers. She parried the first bolt of energy that shot towards her, but was too slow for the second. It caught her painfully across the leg, and she fell to the ground with a cry.

"Get up!" Luke ordered. He was pushing her past her limit, trying to elicit some sort of response. Briande needed to know that she was human, susceptible to human strengths and failings, to know that her feelings were as much a part of her as her arms and her legs.

Briande pushed her legs underneath her, and pushed the pain and anger out of her mind. One seeker, at Luke's direction, circled around her. She swung blindly and missed. The second seeker struck her on the back of the leg. She fell to the ground once more.

"Do you feel it?" the Jedi asked. He was beginning to feel it from her. He finally had begun to realize that whenever Briande was emotionally charged, the Force around her grew stronger. "Briande, you have to unlearn what you've taught yourself. Stop pretending that you can divorce your feelings."

"I...am...not-" she pulled herself slowly to her knees, but was unable to rise any further. One of the seekers darted low for an attack. Briande swung at it, but it dodged her blade easily. The bolt hit her in the side, knocking her to the ground again. She clutched at the pain and lay there, moaning, unable to move. "-pretending!" she finished.

"You must unlearn!" Luke insisted. "Briande, listen to me. You're not going to move ahead any if you keep holding to delusions." He hesitated for a moment, sensing something, then added, "Let go of them, Brie!"

Somewhere, somehow, Briande found the strength to stand again. "Don't...call me...that!"

"It's your name, isn't it?" As he spoke, the seekers repositioned themselves. "It's what your sister used to call you, and your father. Isn't it, Brie?"

He felt energy rising up through the Force, accompanied by a surge of anger. She wasn't hiding her rage now, not even from herself. "I'm not...that person...anymore!"

Streaks of light shot out from the seekers in quick succession. Briande parried them all.

"You're angry now, aren't you?"

"Yes!" she shouted.

"Why?"

"Because I hurt, because you-" She stopped suddenly, unable to finish, frozen like a statue, as she realized what she was saying. Then she began to tremble, all over.

"Don't deny it, Brie! Don't cover it up. You're angry, and you're hurt. That's who you are right now. Don't bury it!"

Briande's body continued to shake, only a little at first, and then more and more violently, until it looked like she was in the throws of a convulsive fit.

All at once, the Force around Luke grew cold. Dark.

In that moment, Luke realized his mistake. He had been trying to get her to acknowledge her emotions by pushing one of them beyond the point where it was impossible to deny. He had concentrated on anger, because it was the easiest to elicit. But anger was also the most difficult to control, the easiest path to the Dark Side.

He was in danger of losing Briande now.

He took a step towards her. "Listen to me, Brie-Briande. I know you're angry. But now that you're aware of your anger, you can control it. You've acknowledged it, now let it go. Don't let it take you over."

Luke's pupil gave a tremendous shudder and turned to face him. Her eyes glinted like cold fire.

But they were no longer Briande's eyes.

It was her body, but the eyes...they belonged to someone else. The eyes were...something evil.

"Fight it, Briande!" he urged. But she needed a weapon to fight the anger with, and he had none to give her.

What had he done?

The face that had been Briande's broke into a cold smile. "You fool," she said. Her voice held a weird, unworldly quality. "Briande is no longer here."

Luke remained calm. Surreptitiously, he moved his hand to his lightsaber. "Fight it, Brie!"

"So, young Skywalker, we meet again."

"Again?" Luke took a step backwards to put more space between himself and this...being. Whoever it was. "Who am I talking to? Brenna?"

"We have been reborn. And now we grow even stronger. Tell me, young Jedi, how does it feel to be the agent of your own destruction?"

She brought the lightsaber crashing towards Luke's head. Instantly, Luke met the blade with his own. Who was he fighting? Brenna Brellis? Why was she using the plural "we"? For a brief instant, he wondered if Briande and Brenna weren't, in fact, the same person, if Briande had some sort of multiple personalities, but he knew that was not true. This was a Force-possession. He pushed Briande's weapon away with his own. "Briande, fight it!"

"Foolish Jedi! Did you not realize what you were doing when you urged her to anger? You have made our power over her complete."

"You haven't won yet," Luke insisted. "Fight them, Brie!"

"She is with us, now. You cannot turn her back."

Who is us? Luke wondered.

She attacked him again. There was no trace of the weakness Briande had displayed earlier with the seekers. Her offense was strong and powerful. Luke met the attack with equal skill, calling on every ounce of his training as a Jedi Knight, and then jumped away from her. He could still feel a trace of Briande somewhere, but he didn't know how to pull it back. What she had told him of her vision returned to him. She had said she would kill him with a lightsaber to the throat. Was now the time?

Foolish, foolish pride, he berated himself. He should have known he was no teacher. Would Briande now suffer the same fate his father had?

He had to find a way to help Briande fight the evil from within, find something for her to use against it. If he didn't, if she couldn't conquer the Darkness, then he would be forced to destroy her. And Luke...couldn't...kill her.

But if he didn't, she would surely kill him.

Briande pressed another attack. Luke parried the blow, parried the next and the next. He brought his blade around to ready his own attack. Perhaps if he forced her to retreat...

In that split-instant, Luke suddenly realized that he couldn't do it. This had been Obi-Wan's mistake. It had been Ben's counter-attack that had pushed Luke's father over the edge of the pit, burning the personality of Darth Vader deep into the being of Anakin Skywalker. But Vader's destiny had been determined even before he fell into the pit, in that very instant when Ben had readied his first attack.

A counter-attack only fed anger and a desire for retaliation, it did nothing to stop them. Luke would have to find some other weapon to use against the anger.

He took a step backwards.

Momentarily taken aback by Luke's broken attack, Briande hesitated. Then she lunged at him again, swinging her energy weapon at Luke's head.

Luke blocked her blade, stopped it, but did not return the blow, made no attempt at a reposte. He retreated again.

Briande paused again, only for a fraction of a second, then brought her weapon back up and around, aiming for his head again and then feinting at the last possible instant for a cut to his mid-section.

Again Luke defended himself. Again he retreated without making any aggressive moves.

For an immeasurable fraction of a second longer this time, Briande hesitated again.

"Briande-" Luke began, breaking off as he had to bring his saber up to protect himself. "Brie, don't!"

"You are wasting your time, Jedi. You should kill her now, while you have the chance." Briande lowered her guard deliberately, but Luke knew it was a taunt, to try to goad him into an attack. He ignored it.

"Come on, Briande, fight it! You can resist. Don't let them do this!"

For a second, Briande's eyes became wide and confused. In that brief space, Luke thought that he had reached at least a part of Briande and pulled her back. But then the eyes flamed again, and she rushed at Luke with a flurry of blows.

The Jedi warded them all off. It was difficult, for she was now as powerful as Vader had been. Still, he used only defensive moves. He did not attack. But this time he did not retreat, either. He remained where he was, and when she finished, he lowered his blade.

Briande appeared indecisive for a moment, then made a short half-lunge at Luke, which he blocked easily. This time, she retreated.

Then Luke made a sudden decision. It was taking a great risk, but then he had taken a similar risk once before. He had sensed something in the Darth Vader then, and he sensed something vaguely similar in Briande now. Furthermore, 'they' had wanted him to kill her. Why would 'they,' unless 'they' knew something about Briande that he didn't? Slowly, without taking his eyes off her, he lowered his defense completely and switched his lightsaber off.

Briande stared at the deactivated energy sword in his hand, then at his face, and then back at his hand again. Slowly she adjusted her stance, readied her attack, expecting some sort of trick.

Suddenly, without warning, she swung her weapon high, aiming for Luke's throat.

Luke didn't move, didn't flinch, didn't even try to deflect the cut. It took all of his control to remain absolutely still. Every instinct wanted to fight.

Just as suddenly as the attack had begun, only inches away from its intended target, the blade stopped. Briande had been unable to follow through. She pulled back and started again, but once more broke off before the attack was completed.

Her face was contorted by the conflict of emotions and personalities that fought within her, her breathing irregular. But her eyes were urgently imploring Luke for assistance. She made another movement, much smaller this time, but still Luke did not react. Her hand began to tremble.

"Help me, Luke," she pleaded in a whisper, in her own voice. "I don't want to hurt you..."

"Take it easy, Briande," the Jedi said softly. "It's okay. I'm-" He took a step toward her but stopped when she pointed her laser sword at him threateningly. "Just relax. I'm here with you."

"I can't fight her. They're too strong for me..."

"No, they're not. They can only control you if you let them. Don't let them. Push them out. You can be angry, without letting it control you. You can be hurt, you can be scared, without letting them in."

"I can't...block..."

"You don't need to block. You don't need to do anything, except be. Just be yourself." He took another step and stopped when he saw that she was only becoming more agitated. "Turn your lightsaber off, Briande."

"I...can't..." she sobbed.

"It's okay, now. Look-I'm putting my weapon down." Slowly, very slowly, Luke knelt down and put his deactivated energy sword on the ground. "See? Put yours down, too." He didn't move any closer-she needed space. But he tried to soothe her with his words.

Briande was sobbing openly now, still battling with herself internally. "Luke-"

"It's all right, Briande. Everything's going to be fine. Just put your sword on the ground. Right down there."

Briande looked at the spot he had indicated, then made another motion as if to attack him. Then she stopped and looked at the ground again. Her hand shook.

"Yes, that's right. Just set it right down there. You can do it."

Hesitantly, with a thousand starts and stops, her whole body shaking now, Briande slowly knelt down and put her lightsaber on the ground. It was still activated. She looked at it for a second, and then picked it up again.

"I can't fight them..."

"You are fighting them, Brie. They wanted you to kill me, and you didn't. You're stronger than they are. You can resist them."

Briande looked at the saber in her hand. She seemed to want to set it down again, but the muscles in her arm and body would not move.

Then slowly, in infinitesimal steps, her thumb crept to the control stud. She sweated profusely, the tiny movement taking all of her strength and concentration. Finally, she touched the button.

The quickness with which the blade was deactivated seemed to startle something awake in Briande. As if she had been holding something on fire, her hand flattened downward, and the weapon dropped to the ground.

All at once, Briande screamed as if in agony. The heels of her hands flew to her temples, pressing against great pain, but whether the pain was physical or otherwise, Luke couldn't tell.

She staggered forward a couple of steps. Luke caught her.

"You did it, Brie! You beat them!"

Briande looked at him with a strange look, a need. The pain was gone now, and the lightsabers lay forgotten on the ground, but there was an incompleteness about her. The cold glint was gone from her eyes but there was no warm light to replace it. She had beaten the evil, but she had still not quite won. Part of Briande was here with him, but part of her was still lost somewhere, and he could feel her moving further and further away. Her body had become a shell, nearly empty except for the need to fill the void where her soul, her self, had been.

"It's okay," Luke murmured, moving closer to her. "It's okay now, Briande." He enfolded her in his arms and rocked her gently. Come back to me, he pleaded silently. Please, please come back to me.

Suddenly he felt her pressing her body against him. Surprised, he pulled away enough to look at her, and she quickly pressed her mouth against his as well.

Then Luke understood. She had found what she needed to fight the anger when he had not. This was also a part of Briande, these feelings. She had felt them, suppressed them, and tried to deny them, but they were still a part of her. He had been trying to get her to acknowledge her emotions, to stop walling them behind the fortress she had built, and that was exactly what she was doing. It was love that had conquered the anger, and now she was trying to pull herself back by acknowledging her love.

As her essence returned to its rightful place, he could feel her want, her need. At the same time, he could feel his own need, like a great hole inside him, as empty as the void inside Briande had been. He'd been incomplete. He knew that, and never more than at this moment.

But he was her teacher, and she was his student. There were too many other needs, other concerns which came first. He had known he was attracted to her since the first time he saw her clearly in the prison cell, but a Jedi's first responsibility lay with others, not with himself. And if he sometimes heard the echo of loneliness shouting inside his empty place, he told himself to look to Ben, and to Yoda, and reminded himself that the life of the Je-he-di was often solitary.

Yet he could not deny his own feelings, either. It was only acceptance that could pull Briande back into herself, that could make himself whole, too. They completed each other, in body and spirit, in mind and in soul, filled each other's empty places so that there was no echo, and the loneliness was crowded out. She filled him, filled his empty place, with something invisible that was nonetheless real, and it expanded inside him, like a balloon about to burst.

He remembered something Leia had said to him the last time he had seen her. It was true; there was no rule that said Jedi Knights had to be celebate. Personal wants and desires could be entertained as long as they did not interfere with the well-being of others. It was only abuse in seeking personal gratifications that was to be avoided.

Love, in itself, had never been an evil thing. Only the perversion of love, perversion twisted by the Dark Side into something other than its true form.

Luke had known love many times, in many forms. He had first known the guiding, parental love of his aunt and uncle. Later, he had known the love between friends, between a brother and sister, between a son and father, and between a student and his teachers. He had tried to convince himself that what he felt for Briande was nothing more than the love of a teacher for his student.

But it wasn't true. Not really, not completely.

He felt himself drawn to Briande as a man to a woman. And drawn to himself, as well. The completeness with which she filled his arms and his soul made him feel finally whole. They were, both of them, Je-he-di, in every possible sense of the word. They were lovers, in the spiritual, emotional, and now even physical planes. They were each other's Se-he-idth, chosen from among all the other possible souls they could come to know. Je-he-di and Se-he-idth, both, separate and together. Complete.

The future and the past faded together as the reality of the moment grew stronger. Gone were Brenna, Palpatine, the visions of darkness, and the fears of uncertainty. It was just Briande and Luke, here and now, finding each other and themselves in a shared present that seemed to engulf all of eternity.

As his mouth joined freely with hers, Luke knew that this moment, this union between them, this mutual completion, was right. It was as if this was the way things were always meant to be, and the way they were always meant to continue.

But the future was always in motion.