When Master Yoda had requested to talk to Cyla for a moment, I was more than eager to listen in as I sat outside a door while they talked. Though, I don't think me listening through the door the entire time she and Master Yoda talked was her intent when she sat me outside of the door and told me to wait. When she first told me to sit outside of the door, I had complained; saying that I wanted to listen. Her response was a stern stare and I sat on the ground before she left me outside. Little did I know, this was going to become a common situation for me.
As my ear was pressed against the door, I could hear Master Yoda say in a huff, "Strong in the Force the boy is, but allow him into the Order I do not."
I could head Master Yoda pace the marble floor; the tapping of his feet, as well as the small thump of his cane, hitting the ground as Cyla replied.
"I will train him outside of the Temple then. He needs to be trained. It would be dangerous for him to have his powers uncontrolled."
I swear I could almost hear Master Yoda shake his head in disapproval after Cyla spoke once more.
"With or without the Council's approval," she told.
"Sense defiance in you I do, Dume," Yoda huffed. "Quite the opposite of your Master you are."
"The boy needs training. He's too powerful within the Force to just be left in the Underworld," Cyla pointed out.
As he let out a sigh, he admitted, "Training, the boy may need. Train the boy you may, but too old he is to join the Order."
"He can be trained in an unorthodox way and still have the full capabilities of any typical Jedi, despite being so old. If I remember right, I was about seven when Master Tanza found me as a slave on Jakku."
"Trained the boy will be by you outside of the Temple. But, report back to the Temple every day you must for your duties at the Holocron Vault need to be done."
"I will be glad to do so," said the female Jedi.
My ear nearly went numb as I pressed my head up against the door a little harder as I heard nothing. Soon, I fell flat on my face as the door in front of me seemed to disappear. I saw brown boots in front of my face and I looked up to see Cyla looking down at me, hands on her hips.
As he shook his head, the green Jedi Master mumbled, "Much work needed there is."
Cyla soon brought me along with her to talk with the older nautolan that we had talked to previously; telling her of all that the short green man told her. I held onto her sleeve as I stood there, not wanting to get lost in the Temple; probably looking like a small child clinging to their guardian as I did so.
"You training the boy may be dangerous, Cyla. You had only graduated into Jedi Knighthood meer weeks ago," Tanza opined.
"I think I will be fine, Master," she assured.
"How will you be able to return every night after training the boy?" Tanza inquired. "And keep up with your duties in maintaining the Jedi Archives?"
She assured, "I will be fine, Master. Besides, not too much happens in those Archives anyways."
As she let out a deep sigh, Tanza said, "Alright. But, I can always help with your workload as training a Padawan is a very tiring experience."
"Thank you."
"Let's get you back to your family," the nautolan looked to me. She and Cyla soon led me back to the entrance that Cyla and I had left Onthant at. Tanza stayed inside the Temple as Cyla assured that she'd take me and my brother back to the Underworld, train me for a little bit, and then head back to the Temple.
When the young female Jedi and I approached Onthant, she told the news of her being my Jedi Master and that she'd train me back at our place. He seemed pretty good at accepting this news and we headed back to the Underworld.
Going back to the shop, we had to take a hovertrain as it was a pretty far trek if we were to have walked the entire way. So, we used the Elcor Station like we had when we were heading to the Jedi Temple. The Elcor Station is a pretty rough place; muggers were in abundance and I could bet you twenty credits that there were at least two drunk people there at any point that you'd walk through it. Black Heth was infamous there to terrorize those who passed through. Having a Jedi by our side, I felt a little safer. Plus the fact Onthant was a pretty tall dude who looked like he could kill you in one punch made me feel even safer.
Cyla and Onthant both had one hand on the pole that was for stability for those standing while I sat in a seat that was just behind the two. Hovertrains weren't very luxurious nor sanitary as the car's interior were a disgusting green from the lack of paint and the seats smelled. But, it was all I had ever known. We had already shown our passes when we had first boarded. The train had plenty of people packed inside of all different species. I had sat next to a twi'lek woman holding her child who was no older than a toddler in her lap.
The child babbled as she waved at me. I smiled and waved back to her and her small hands grabbed my hand. I looked to her mother for assistance as I was scared I had passed a line and became too intrusive, but she just smiled and said,
"Sorry. She's a grabber."
She didn't speak in Basic, though, as she was obviously from Ryloth and said that in Twi'leki. As I figured she couldn't understand Basic, I spoke back in Twi'leki.
"It's alright; but may I please have my hand back?"
Onthant looked back at me as he squinted his eyes, he asked in a surprised voice, "Since when did you speak another language?"
"Oh, shut up," I retaliated in Basic. "I'm not stupid."
"Well, I'm surprised you can speak another language since you can't even read the language you're speaking and you're twelve," Onthant said.
Cyla was immediately intrigued, "He can't read?"
"No. And the idiot refuses me to let me teach him," Onthant told.
"I'm not an idiot!" I snapped in Basic.
The train came to a stop and I wriggled my hand out from the grasp of the small toddler and departed the train as I followed my new Jedi Master and my adoptive brother. As we stepped into the Elcor Station I immediately felt like there was something off. I wasn't sure what, though.
It felt like deja vu as I continued to feel this sensation and it seemed to increase as I walked further into the station. I stopped as others continued to pass by me and pondered this sensation. I didn't understand why it was so familiar. Why it felt like something I just knew. Not since before I met Canto and Onthant had I felt it. Without thinking of the fact that Onthant and Cyla were now well out my sight nor considering the fact that this was a dangerous place for a little kid like myself, I took off in another direction than what led me back me home.
I followed this sensation I felt in the back of my head. It got stronger and stronger as I neared a building that was once the ticket booth for the train station. Reduced to nothing but a rat-infested shed. A few apartment buildings were just a couple meters behind and beside it. I slowed down as my eyes scanned the area, looking for what I could tell was there but I couldn't see.
Then I stopped and looked sharply to my right. There I could see a man in his mid-forties with speckles of black in his grey irises. His hair was black except for one stripe of white on the side of his head that was the same color of his goatee. He had freckles all over his face as he stared at me with an expression of a madman who somehow managed to have curiosity in his eyes. As he leaned against a tarnished wall and only had a gray light shine on him, he looked like some kind of apparition.
I wondered if he really was.
"Hey, son," his voice sounded so cold. His eyes looked venomous like a snake's and just as unforgiving. "Long time no see."
I stood there for a moment; confused on what I should say. Panic filled me and I ran. My shoes pounded the pavement as I ran back through the Elcor Station and right into my adoptive brother. He was fairly puzzled by my sudden appearance as he tells that he and Cyla had been calling for me through the station. "Worried sick." Cyla uses those words as if she were a mother talking to a small child who she had just been separated from.
The next few weeks were fairly informative to me as Cyla taught me the best she could of the Jedi and the Force. When she attempted to teach me to read, I nearly had a mental breakdown of tears. The words didn't make sense to me. I didn't understand why some letters looked just like others and yet they were completely different. My brain didn't want to work with me and it sure didn't want to work with made me even more infuriated with learning reading is that I couldn't even see the difference between some letters or what they sounded like. It was like I hit a brick wall just as I thought I had just accomplished something.I wanted to cry as I felt like I was too stupid to read what a toddler could. My brain felt like it was short-circuiting like a droid with a few loose wires when I scanned my eyes over the words. I was thankful my new Master was so patient and kind despite my inability to learn to read anything more than a few simple words. With me having to take in all this knowledge so quickly, I couldn't get my work done like I used to. Canto wasn't pleased with this and he began to argue with Cyla about my teachings taking up so much of the time I was supposed to work. Cyla would often oppose his opinion; making things tense with anger between the two. Onthant saw this and offered to take up some of my workloads as he supported the fact I needed to be trained if I was to become a Jedi. Begrudgingly, Canto accepted this.
I loved everything Cyla taught me about the Jedi. The history, the Force, the Masters, and the battles fought thousands of years ago against the "Sith". The only thing I didn't like the entire Jedi thing is meditation. I mastered that as well as I had with reading. My brain just didn't accept it. My brain didn't want to slow down. It didn't want to be quiet so I could focus. I wanted to, though. My brain just didn't want to. I had always had that problem ever since I was little. I never was able to quiet my mind even if I tried my best. I couldn't ever focus on something unless I was coerced to listen by curiosity or it involved me fixing something. But, those few times I would get bored with something I was supposed to be doing, Canto would get really mad at me. I couldn't help it, though, as my brain just seemed to want to wander. That's why I liked to fix things so much that had so many problems. If I got bored with one thing wrong with the droid or speeder bike, I'd look and find another problem and fix that instead. Then after going through things that needed fixing, I'd eventually get the entire thing Cyla was teaching me to levitate small objects with the Force, I slightly succeeded better in that than in other things she taught me. I could shakily lift a cup or a wrench if I focused really hard. Even in this category, I got frustrated as I saw Cyla doing it with such ease. She could lift a wrench with the Force so gracefully, it was like she was picking it up with an invisible hand. Lightsaber training was my favorite. For the first few lessons, she just had me learn the basic blocks with a broomstick. I enjoyed it nonetheless.
Cyla was plain out exhausted during the beginnings of my training. And it was no surprise. Having to go back and forth from the Under City to the Jedi Temple to help organize their library, she had no rest really. This weighed on me greatly as I felt it was my fault for her sleep deprivation as I made her job of teaching me such an arduous task. Everyone in the shop could tell she was enervated she was with the bags under her eyes and the yawns being so constant. But, she refused to let that get in the way of teaching me the best she could.
One day, Onthant decided to take this as an opportunity to offer my Master to go eat with him. Being the clueless age of twelve, I volunteered to tag along eagerly. Strive did too. I could see the vexation fill my adoptive brother's face as Cyla accepted this and we all headed out to eat. We decided to just go to a local noodle shop owned by a quarren named Lauli Wahlo. He was weird to me. His right eye was not there anymore as a blue cybernetic eye was in its place with a scar all along the right side of his orange face. He wasn't very good with people, but he did make some good food. When we got our food, that had a taste I no longer remember, I remember fooling around like a little kid with Strive. He was always like a friend to me, almost brother, that I could joke around with. He and I somehow just managed to act like kids whenever we were around each other. Sure, Onthant was a pretty cool guy and brother, but I looked up to him like he was a...well...parent. He, Cyla, and Canto were the closest people I had ever had to a real parent. Strive was the guy I would spin around on a swivel chair with to see which one of us could get dizzy first. We would even tease Onthant about his "crush" on Cyla. When we did this while eating our noodles, Onthant was fairly irked as Cyla was right there.
As he nudged my arm with his elbow, Strive looked to me as he slightly nodded his head to Cyla and Onthant who were talking to each other. I noticed Cyla had her fingers intertwined as she rested her chin on them while her elbows propped her up as they sat on the counted as she gazed back at Onthant. Cyla sat between Strive and Onthant, so I only saw the back of her head, but I can imagine she was smiling at him. Onthant had his full attention on my Master as he didn't bat his eye away when she talked with a small smile on his face.
"And did I notice a stubble? Oh, my Force he was growing out his facial hair…" I thought to myself "What's next? A ponytail to impress her?"
"So, would you two say that this is a successful date for you both?" Strive inquired with a snicker.
"Shut it, Strive…" Onthant glared at the rodian.
"Hey buddy, that's my Jedi Master you're flirtin' with," I joked with a smile.
Trying to get off the subject, Onthant turned to Cyla, "That reminds me. How is Jalo's training going?"
"Well, I think he should show you for himself," Cyla looked to me and I understand the simple queue she was implying.
I looked back to my bowl of noodles and closed my eyes as I put my hand in front of me. I cleared my mind and focused just on the bowl and only that bowl. I called upon the power of the Force to lift the bowl slowly into the air. After a moment, I could feel the bowl becoming harder and harder to focus on as it began to slip. I could hear it clatter onto the tabletop and I snapped open my eyes.
My blood boiled as Onthant and Strive laughed. I don't remember what I snapped at them, but I remember I was infuriated at them both for making fun of me by laughing. I remember Cyla sternly warning me to keep a cool head as I was so mad.
"Padawan Hikra!" she harshly snapped. "That is no way for a Jedi to act."
"But-"
"You are to not get so upset over such little things as long as you are my Padawan. Anger is the path to the Dark side and I will not tolerate it from you."
"Hey, hey, hey! What's going on here?" We turned to the shop's owner who was fairly irritated. "Did you just say you were a Jedi?"
"Well, yes-" Cyla's calm repose was quickly cut off.
"I don't want no trouble with any Jedi. Leave!" the man harshly snapped as he slammed his hands on the countertop.
"Hey! That's no way-" I was interrupted.
"Then so be it," Cyla calmly spoke and shot me a look that told me to shut up before she looked back to Lauli. "We will leave." and she stood as well as Onthant and Strive after the two shared a concerned glance.
I begrudgingly followed my family back down the streets of the Underworld. I caught up to Cyla, asking why in the universe someone would kick someone out for being a Jedi.
"Doesn't he realize Jedi are the protectors of the universe? I say he should be grateful for having a Jedi customer!" I ranted
"People may feel as if the Jedi are not the protectors that have been told in history and stories. They may see the Jedi as nothing more than trouble for their powers and strong connection with the Force. Though people may not realize how much the Jedi to protect the people, we do a lot in this universe to protect those in need. People may never appreciate something until it's gone."