WARNING: THIS IS A COMPANION STORY FORTwo Parts of a Whole: A Reylo Star Wars story. PLEASE AT LEAST READ CHAPTERS 1-19 BEFORE STARTING THIS STORY!
(This Chapter follows Two Parts of a Whole chapter: 29)
Disclaimer: I do not own Star Wars or any of the Amazing characters other than Eshreal...
As always enjoy!
Chapter 7: Becoming Warriors
The next day Eshreal and the others all began gathering their things and loading them into their respective rooms on the Starfall. Being the captain/Pilot, Eshreal stopped by the kitchen to restock the galley on the ship. Then she met everyone by the ship.
Once Rey and Kylo were ready they all headed out together. It wasn't a long trip to Ilum, but it certainly was interesting. Eshreal had fun freaking out the team, doing barrel rolls without any warnings or flying so close to Kylo's shuttle that everyone thought they were going to crash. Cade and Zer-o were pretending to be calm, but she could tell they were freaking out. Gear and Taliki managed to keep focused but Asera swore they were going to die.
When Kylo called for them to fire on the TIE fighters, Zer and Cade didn't hesitate to run for the gunners seat, but Cade won out and he got to fire the shot when Kylo called for it. And once they landed Eshreal got to lead them all back to the temple where the real fun began. Rey, Gear, Taliki and Asera went into the cave each experiencing something different.
Gear relived his memories of his time with Snoke. The sick feeling of his darkness crawling through his brain and temporarily tainting his soul. Gear fought it off by remembering his mentor's words that 'the darkness was easy to drown in but those who are worthy of the light fight for it'. He remember the feeling of being free of Snoke and then he was free only to be dropped into another nightmare.
Gear was watching as the Stormtroopers fired on his mentor killing him. There was nothing he could do as he was aboard Cade and Zer-o's ship and they were fleeing at top speed. Gear crumbled under the guilt of knowing that his mentor was dead because he was trying to give Gear the opportunity to live in the light instead of the darkness that inhabited Kamino thanks to Snoke and the First Order.
He felt like such a failure to need protecting like that. He knew that Jeta was worried that if Gear stayed on Kamino he would fall to the dark side completely in his quest for strength. Now Gear had his friends to help him keep his head on straight and a doctor to oversee his experiments. The darkness had no hold on him.
When Gear came to he was holding two dark green Kyber crystals with dark centers. He knew immediately what he was going to build with them and was the first one out of the cave. He gathered his components and found an empty spot on the floor and began meditating on his lightsaber.
Taliki walked into the cave and suddenly she was back on her home world. The slavers were snatching her away from her mother who was screaming and crying for her child. The men with the slavers hit her father with the butt of his blaster rifle and threatened to take her mother too. She remembered feeling so helpless and weak. She never saw her parents again and sometime she felt that she didn't try hard enough or often enough to escape her captures or kill Nak'tul. She often wished the Force had awakened in her earlier. She could have saved her parents and herself a lot of pain and suffering.
She had failed as a child, but she would never fail to protect anyone she cared about ever again. When they got to Olara she swore to train extra hard. She would not be the one who would need help when it came time to fight. Taliki shook off her self-doubt, confident that she was strong enough to make a difference in a fight.
Then Taliki was back on that stage for the first time. The whip in her hand felt new and dangerous. The crowd was leering at her waiting for to hurt herself, whether minor or serious it was all entertainment to them. The more she hurt herself the more the crowd cheered. Nak'tul stood to the side watching her with greedy eyes.
Then she remembered that the whip was hers. She has spent years perfecting the dance that coordinated well enough with the whip that she could be seductive and threatening at once. The whip was her weapon, and no one would take it from her. She would do everything she could Rey and Kylo even if it meant giving her life. She came back to herself inside with cave with a pure white Kyber crystal in her hand. She headed out to join Gear in meditating on her weapon.
Asera didn't know what to expect when she walked into the cave. She expected to relive the moment she was told that her parents were dead or even when her village made her leave the planet. But she had come to grips with the fact that as a child there was nothing she could have done to stop her parents from going on that mission and she could not fault her village for sending her way in order to keep the First Order from destroying them all.
Instead she was at the academy. Deyoni, her mentor, was working on an injured girl. Asera was working on a girl who was dying. She'd been attacked by a wild animal. The men had caught and killed the beast, but the girl had a few mortal injuries. It was a wonder that she had made it to the academy at all. Asera had healed with the Force several times before and was confident she could help. She laid hands on the girl, but they were shaky, she couldn't find her focus. The girl died before Asera thought to call out to Deyoni.
Asera had never forgiven herself for that. She'd seen horrible things before then and could always find the Force. That's girl death haunted her and suddenly the body on the table belonged to Gear and then Zer-o and all her new friends were suddenly dead because of her. It took a while, but she slowly went over all of the patients she'd saved over the years and knew that she no longer had any trouble calling on the Force. She would see her friends through no matter what.
Asera came to with her bright orange crystal with the black core in her hand. She was ready to get started on her lightsaber. It came to her at the end of her vision. She headed out of the cave and was disappointed to see that Gear and Taliki where there already but intrigued to see that Rey had yet to come out and Ren had gone inside.
Once everyone had completed their lightsabers and Kylo told them what all the colors meant they were allowed to practice with their weapons out on Ilum. Kylo paired them up. Though they all wanted to wait and watch as he and Rey went at it, they knew they had to take every opportunity to get stronger while they could.
Eshreal was paired up with Cade. He snuck off into the terrain, using the Force to disguise his presence. Eshreal removed her cloak and spread her wings. She took her lightsaber into both hands and ignited the twin blades. She took to the air.
"You'll never hit me, Cade," Eshreal taunted.
Cade watched her from a formation of rocks. Once he had her in his sights. He fired off a yellow blaster bolt. Eshreal spun her blades and knocked the bolt away. Then she extinguished her blades and threw the spiked wheel in the direction the bolt had come from. At the last second Cade jumped out of the way and the rocks he was hiding amongst was obliterated.
"I'll get you next time. I've got you all figured out," Cade growled more to himself than anyone else.
Asera and Taliki were partnered together because they both had severely unique weapons. Kylo kept a mindful eye on them as he didn't want anything to happen to the doctor while they were so far away from home. Taliki tried to use her lightwhip the same way that she had used her regular whip but found it difficult.
"Taliki you need to concentrate on channeling the Force down your arm and into the whip. Make it move with you," Asera called while trying to pivot with the forked staff.
Both females were clumsy with their weapons to start but finally Asera managed to jab out with the staff and only Taliki's agility allowed her to get out of the way in time. Then she lashed out with the whip, finally getting it to move the way she wanted it to. Asera's quick thinking and reflexes brought the blades of her staff forward to block. Leaving the girls in a stalemate again.
Gear and Zer-o were having more fun with their training. Zer-o was firing off shots as he moved, leaving it up to Gear to block or dodge. Gear on the other hand needed to calculate how and when to get close to the other male for the best chance at tagging him. Zer made sure to stay on the move but knew eventually Gear's strategic mind would come up with something.
"Why won't you fight me head up," Gear called.
"Because you have a double ended laser sword and all I have is a pistol," Zer-o called with a grin.
He fired off a couple of shots and then hit the release as he charged in so that he was holding his lightsaber in its blade form. Zer-o beat Gear back with wide arching slashes and quick forward jabs. Gear stumbled on a patch of ice and went down in the snow.
"Again," Kylo and Rey called to the three pairs without ever stopping their battle.
Eshreal knew she wasn't the only one who noticed that Kylo Ren had gone from having fun with them to pushing them to their limits for hours on end. When they did get to rest they had to trek back to the ship just to warm up and eat. He wouldn't let them take anything off of the ship even though he was going to make them sleep in the temple.
"Is it just me or is Ren being even more of a slave driver than normal," Cade asked as they all ate on the Starfall.
"Yeah. He was almost happy after we all completed our lightsabers but now he's almost doubled the intensity of our training. I mean I'm not complaining because we all need to get stronger but this is getting ridiculous," Taliki said.
"We should just ask what's going on," Eshreal suggested.
Zer-o and Asera both snorted in disbelief.
"Good luck with that," Zer-o said.
"Yeah you can count me out," Asera said.
"You two are fowls. I wanna know what's going on," Cade said.
"He feels it too," Gear said causing them all to turn to him.
"What," they all asked.
"Kylo Ren can feel the darkness approaching this place. He knows we are running out of time and he is trying to prepare us before we have to fight for real. The first battle of this war is going to be fought right here on Ilum," Gear said.
He wasn't trying to freak them out but he was freaked out himself. He didn't know why he could feel the coming darkness or why he knew that Kylo Ren could feel it too. If he had to guess it was because they had both been touched by true darkness in the form of Snoke.
He could feel it like some looming shadow just waiting for the light to be fully extinguished before it would fall upon them with pain and death. They really didn't have much time. Either sometime during the night or very early tomorrow, Gear could bet his life that First Order ships would descend upon them.
"We have to be ready to fight," Gear said.
"We will be. Let's eat and take a nap before Ren starts barking orders at us again," Zer-o suggested heading off toward his own room.
"Yeah. I agree. Everyone get some rest. I'll go let Rey and Kylo know what's going on," Gear said and left the Starfall.
After a thorough chat with the leaders of the group, Kylo agreed that they could rest for the remainder of the night. Gear agreed to have them take turns keeping watch. The last thing they needed was Zroyais and Hux sneaking up on them.
Though the last chapter of Two Parts of a Whole is coming out Friday and then I'll be going on hiatus from the main story for 2 months before the next part of the trilogy comes out I will continue posting chapters for The Last Hope every week. I hope you guys stick with me as The Neo Order: A Reylo Star Wars Story and Star Wars: The Knights of Rey continue the story.