Padawan Neria Halai – Coruscant
Three tests.
It'll be easy, Neria told herself. It'll be easy. Just three, I can hold it together for that long. I just wish I wasn't so sore.
In truth, the Twi'lek padawan had recovered well enough since landing that she could handle whatever lay ahead, but she worried over the potential weakness that would lie ahead once the trials were over.
At least she was getting the abbreviated version of the trials. A padawan who had never been tested in the field or across the galaxy would go through far more extensive trials, while those who had gone far above and beyond could skip the trials entirely—Skywalker came to her mind.
She'd struck the median, as ever. Three trials, consisting of Force application, facing down the dark side, and combat. The first two would be a greater a challenge than the third, at least as far as she could imagine.
A cloying breath was her final indulgence before she descended the stone stairs and into the first chamber.
Sand covered the floor, a mechanically-generated fog permeating the entire chamber. A second level had been built midway up the wide room, a number of columns supporting its weight.
"Welcome, Padawan Halai."
Neria recognized the knight's voice, though she'd only interacted with him on occasion. A newer one, if she recalled correctly.
"So," she said, smiling. "You're to be a part of my trial?
"No. We are."
Her smile faded as dozens of young humans appeared from behind the pillars in the room, and the rushing of water may as well have turned to a roar in the tension that suddenly settled in between them. She tried to reach out to find which one was real, but they all shimmered with the Force.
"It's illusions, then?" she asked, pulling her other saber from her belt. "Clever."
"One of us is real." The voices of the illusions joined him, their voices creating a one-tone chorus that echoed through the chamber. "Tell me, Padawan Halai, how will you figure out which one?"
Figuring that he wanted a verbal answer, she decided to respond. "Well, you're not all—"
As one, they leaped at her, leaving Neria scrambling for an answer. Instead of trying to summon a response from midair, she instead dove left, the only direction where she only had one of the knight to contend with. She rolled under his blade, then came back up to find them all advancing swiftly on her location.
Loose rocks, flame, water, sand, there were plenty of resources at her disposal. The latter especially caught her interest, and she dropped a saber to scoop some sand from the floor. She waited for them to close, then threw it.
The Force flowed through her as she released the sand from her grasp, directing the handful in a wave dispersed far enough to cover the crowd. Only one out of the knights raised his arm to block his eyes from the damaging granules.
Neria flung herself at the real knight, summoning her other weapon to her hand to join the blue blaze of its companion.
The padawan telegraphed her blow clearly enough. Admittedly, it was her first time running through the trials, but she suspected that killing fellow Jedi would be frowned upon.
He blocked her easily, shoved a hand out before her second weapon could come to hand, and pushed her away with a blast of the Force. She was thrown right back the way she came in a cloud of sand.
Neria landed on her feet, if unsteadily, and the spare lightsaber completed its journey to her hand. Once the obfuscating cloud had subsided, the knight was gone.
"Good." The echoes again, an irritating choir in the darkness of the chamber. "But that trick won't work twice. And I won't hesitate, this time."
What he meant became all too clear when she felt him descending from the upper tier behind her. She rolled forward and out of the way, finding a trio of the knights in front of her.
They descended upon Neria too quickly for her to formulate a response other than to defened herself. The first two swung high, the third tried to spear her. She kept one weapon up high to block, then pirouetted around the other.
She spun back around and pushed a hand out, directing a wave of energy through the limb. The knight on the left didn't respond to the push.
That was one down.
The illusion was still an irritant as she fought the other two, both of their weapons squealing in defiance as they met her blades. The one she'd ruled out was a distraction, the flash of its saber continually confounded her.
Neria kicked out at the second, made contact, and shoved the real knight back. She moved to attack, then he abruptly powered his weapons down. She followed suit, as was traditional.
"Well done," he told her. "There will be no fight here. You will move on to the next room."
The padawan inclined her head. "Thank you."
He stepped aside, and she moved forward to a door that slid open at the other end. Without windows to see inside, she wondered how her progress was being judged. She passed through a short corridor, then was on to the second chamber.
Stalactites, darkness pierced only by the harsh red glow of crystals all around. The floor was littered with black granules of sand, triangular crimson structures all around.
Oppression pressed down upon her, smothering and stifling. The twisting darkness was suffocating, the tendrils of the dark side sinking into her gut and turning it. A gentle disquiet took hold of her, threatening to unbalance her.
It was an easy guess as to what the purpose of the room was. The second challenge sought to test her emotions, to see her conquer the darkness.
So she took a seat, crossing her legs, and descended into a deep meditation. She was ready for the dark side.
The power was a small thing at first, but such was its nature. The dark side was a quiet whisper, not a loud demand. It persuaded, it didn't command. By comparison, the light side was a triumphant cry of power, a blunt force of will.
It slowly built, and eventually, heat built inside her as anger rose up, a rage that could only be quelled by great effort. It was something she had only felt once before, the childish vexation at learning she'd had parent she'd been torn from.
Yet the great effort that the anger demanded was her singular purpose. The trials challenged every Jedi who sought to conquer it, and she would be no different.
Meditation was he bulwark against the opposition, a calm center than refused to be move even under the debilitating weight of that rage. It demanded she move, and she didn't. It demanded that she cry in outrage at how often she'd been dismissed or marginalized, and she didn't.
It demanded her subservience, and she wouldn't even entertain the idea.
Eventually it receded, and Neria was left calm. But it wasn't over, that much she knew.
The padawan was proven right a moment later, the overwhelming despair sudden and crushing. She remembered the feeling of being rejected by her first two teachers after years under their tutelage, of the deaths she'd seen on the battlefield.
But they were emotions that she'd already reconciled. They passed, quicker than the anger had. Jealousy was even more fleeting, foreign to a girl who had everything she could want but for the title she was currently striving for. A stroke of passion, quickly transversed, was next.
The sudden swelling of pride wasn't unanticipated, but she never would've guessed that it would affect her so greatly.
Thoughts came of how much she'd been overlooked through the years, excelling past her peers in her combat skill while watching them all move on past her. Memories of how her former masters grown frustrated with her, given up on her, and how the council had barely afforded her for one more chance.
Such neglect had continued on even when she'd finally had some achievements to claim as her own, when she'd turned the tide of a battle on Geonosis and defeated an assassin. Tank, Dreamer, they'd attempted to remind her that she'd done more than she was being given credit for, but it had hurt all the same.
It wasn't fair to her, that she'd had such a run of bad luck, a run well beneath her dignity.
Response came in the former of quiet reminders that the council had seen fit to reward her with the trial, that the years hadn't been wasted. After all, had they not recognized Neria's commitment and her training and seen the progress she'd made, she would've been subjected to the full, long battery of tests that normal padawan were burdened with.
The falsely-engineered pride began to fade, a last sting that coincidentally found her ashamed that her greatest challenge so far had been her own pride. When no more came, she started to ascend from the tranquil state she'd struggled to maintain.
Her efforts to banish the barrage of dark side energy and its effects was a victory that came with cost. Weariness had come to her, a condition more emotional and mental than physical. Sweat had begun to trickle down her back, and the robes she wore started to feel heavy on her shoulders.
Neria suspected it to be a state exacerbated by the ambient energy of the dark side in the room. She needed to get out as soon as possible.
The door slid open, and she made haste for the blissful refuge of the hallway beyond. Once it slid shut behind the padawan, leaving her without the pursuit of the dark side, she felt a lightness come to her heart. The twisting sickness that had infected her stomach fled, and the weariness abated—though not completely.
The trial had drained her more than she thought it would, fighting off the emotional battery a struggle she'd been unprepared for. Once she'd collected herself, aware that she couldn't take too long in the stretches between the chambers, she moved on.
The last room was bare of any tricks or traps that she could see. Whatever waited for her, it seemed as though it would be simple, straightforward. She ran through the sparse mental list of what the trials consisted of. She'd already dealt with her application of the force in her first trial and combating the tide of negative emotions in the second.
And that leaves combat.
It was the only part of her training that she'd excelled in, even as she'd lagged in every other area. The first test had been a trial of wits, and the second had been unexpectedly difficult. She could only hope that the final trial would be easier.
Neria activated her lightsabers, awaiting whatever training droids would test her.
A small pillar of green light activated in the corner, its soft glow illuminating the unusually rigid face of Master Shaak-Ti. In the bareness between them, the power she was about to face was all too clear, a veritable maelstrom of energy that she couldn't hope to match.
And Neria had thought it would be straightforward.
No words were spoken. She knew what she had to do, shifting into a defensive position.
Master Shaak-Ti darted forward, lightsaber little more than a blur. Neria was barely able to block it, weapons sweeping to the side to block her. The counterattack was a kick to her stomach in an attempt to drive the wind out of her, but the Jedi Master shoved her away with a wave of energy that left the padawan dizzy.
The master descended again, thrusting in. Neria twisted to the side, swinging to try to catch the Jedi Master in the head, certain it would caught by her.
And she was wrong, the Jedi Master ducking the blow and shoving her away with the Force once again.
"Very good," she said, serenity slackening her features. "Now we really begin."
We're starting to close in on the end of this first third of the story. Let me know what you all think so far, thanks.