After deciding to train Mizuki as well as Luke, Obi-Wan decided to see what the two of them could do. At that moment, Merrin came forward with several lightsabers inside a box, and asked Mizuki which she'd like to try. She picked one with a crossguard hilt, with an orange blade, at which point Cal walked forward. "Press the button, here," Cal said, holding up his own lightsaber to show her. Mizuki pressed down, at which point Cal explained the training mode was now active, to which he tapped a tiny branch against her blade, and it bounced off. "Don't want any accidents during training, after all."
"Thank you," Mizuki said. "I haven't really practiced with swords, but I've seen Grandpa practice with his a lot."
"Why don't you just show us what you can do, for now?" Obi-Wan said, taking the lightsaber from her gently. Perhaps he should have explained how it worked before he gave Luke his father's sword. Seeing that Obi-Wan was wondering where all these lightsabers came from, Cal spoke up: while he was looking for Tanalorr, he'd been competing with a small army of pirates called the Bedlam Raiders for its location. The Raider lieutenants were trained with lightsabers pilfered from murdered Jedi.
"Was there a huge sale of Jedi stuff after Order 66?" a surprised Mizuki asked.
"No," Greez said flatly. "The Raiders were led by a twelve-hundred-year-old Gen'Dai named Rayvis who killed many Jedi in battle and taught his greatest underlings how to fight with lightsabers. Not well enough to handle me, however."
"Gen'Dai are no joke," Obi-Wan said, upon hearing that story. "They are usually seven and a half feet tall, extremely strong, and have a habit of reconnecting to severed body parts, or even regenerating them. You bested one yourself, Cal?"
"It was one of the hardest fights of my life, but yes, I killed Rayvis," Cal said, before turning to Mizuki. "There is a group of droids I use for training. Why don't you show us your Firebending against them?"
"What about the droids?" asked Mizuki.
"They'll be fine," Cal replied. "They are rather durable, and have a bunch of protections, as well." With that, Merrin led Mizuki to the training course, while Commander Cody and several other clone troopers showed up, saluting Obi-Wan.
"It's good to see you again, General," Boil said to Obi-Wan, who replied it was mutual. "Unfortunately, we don't have any training remotes, here. But we still have our DC-15s and the stun setting on them." Remembering a lesson Anakin gave Ahsoka, Obi-Wan drew his lightsaber and told his squad to try to get through his defense. With that, the four clones spread out and began firing the blue stun waves at their general. But Obi-Wan caught each and every one with his lightsaber, dissipating them into nothing. He then moved forward, deflecting more shots from the squad, and then bounced away a surprise attack from Cal, swinging his lightsaber with the training safety on.
"You should always be mindful of your surroundings, Luke," Obi-Wan said, before looking to his old friends, Cody and the other clones. "You did well, and I was a bit hard pressed. I don't think Luke is ready to be trained, this way, thankfully, I have my own training remote." As Obi-Wan set up the training remote he'd taken from his home on Tatooine, Merrin led Mizuki to the obstacle course.
"Firebending is powered by the sun," Mizuki explained to the Nightsister. "The most important thing about Fire is that it is alive, for good or bad. It can warm your home and cook your food but burn you alive if you aren't careful."
"I'm not the one you need to convince," Merrin said with a soft smile. "Jedi tend to assume anything remotely affiliated with the Dark Side is wrong on its own. But at least you shoot flames instead of lightning." She then noticed a nervous look on Mizuki's face. "You use lightning as well?"
"No," Mizuki said a bit reluctantly. "I haven't progressed that far. But there are a truly significant number of Firebenders whose main job is to shoot lightning into capacitors at a power plant. They are about as likely to be good or bad as anyone."
"Well, Force Lightning is so heavily associated with the Sith, it's often called Sith Lightning," Mizuki explained. "The only reason Darth Vader doesn't cast it is because it can't be conjured from mechanical arms. But you can tell Cal and Obi-Wan more later. For now, the obstacle course awaits." With that, Mizuki asked what she'd face, and was told 'nothing that can truly hurt you.' Recognizing the challenge was a surprise, Mizuki went to the start of the trail and was told to strike various mannequins on her journey, while evading shots from battle droids whose weapons were set to stun. Looking at the droids moving to the overlook, Mizuki saw they looked a little like the standard battle droids with squeaky voices, but their heads were more rounded, and they were painted dark brown, with more solid-looking arms and legs.
"We are ready," one of them, with a sword on his back, said in a deeper voice than the standard B1s. He then ran faster than the previous droids and jumped to the side of the cliff before quickly climbing up, with the other droids of his model outright flipping as they jumped.
"They were created for better performance than the B1s," Merrin said a bit uncomfortably. "As I saw when they came to Dathomir." As Mizuki went to the starting position, Merrin placed her hand on a buzzer, and pressed, sounding the start. Mizuki ran forward, and the droids, she later learned they were called BX Commandos, began firing their rifles set to stun at her. She quickly dodged one, tossing some fire blasts at them as she did so, but several managed to dodge her attacks. The Fire Princess propelled herself faster with her flames, becoming too hard for the blue waves to hit. Spotting several mannequins, she tossed one fireball for each of them, and then she tripped over something.
Looking up, Mizuki saw a huge droid in front of her. It was dull, metallic grey, shaped like a human. It had red eyes, along with a red dot on its chest, and was holding a metal staff whose ends sparked with electricity. She blasted flames from both her hands at it, but it moved spectacularly fast and tapped her in the side with the end of its staff. There was a painful sting, and she collapsed.
"That went rather well, for someone without a lightsaber or any idea of what to expect," Merrin said, helping the teenage girl up onto her feet. "Magnaguards like IG-749 here were intended to fight Jedi, complete with special staffs, and were too expensive to be used en masse on the battlefield. Still, you did rather well for yourself as a beginner." With that, the two women headed back to observe Luke's first lesson. Luke had been hit with some low-powered shots from the training remote and was now nursing the stings he felt. After the training segment was over, Obi-Wan decided to learn more about Firebender philosophy.
Baatar and the EUA troops he was with were strapped into their boarding craft borrowed from the Accuser, the Star Destroyer commanded by Firmus Piett. They were headed for a freighter with a large set of transmitters attached. It was used by a Rebel faction to broadcast propaganda against the Empire. Baatar had decided, as part of their training, to take his men on a real boarding action. They had learned of this propaganda ship's course, and had plotted out how to capture it. At that moment, they saw the ship flying by, while they were hidden behind an asteroid. The TIE Bombers close by powered up, and swarmed their target, firing several ion torpedoes. One of the bombers was shot down by a defense turret but the missiles hit their mark, and electrical discharges wracked the freighter.
"Get ready!" Baatar yelled to his squad, holding onto the ceiling as their shuttle sped toward the entry point. "Remember, surface panels ONLY! We don't want to rupture a cable or something, after all." The Metalbenders yelled 'Sir, yes sir!' back to him, and within a minute, they had landed on the closest airlock to the engine room. One of the Metalbenders placed his hand on the Airlock, and sensed around ten people close to it on the other side running about, but they didn't seem to have noticed the shuttle had landed. With that, several of the sappers moved forward and attached the breaching charges while Baatar fastened on his own helmet. Soon, sparks began flying both on the boarders' side, and the enemy crew's side. At that moment, the last charge detonated and blew the door off its hinges.
"Follow me!" Baatar yelled through their radio channel their helmets were tuned into. Activating his lightsaber, he charged forward and chopped the closest Rebel in half, while his squad opened fire with their E-11s. Several of the Rebels fired back, but the Metalbenders pulled wall panels in front of them, blocking the shots. As they returned fire, one of the Metalbenders tossed his panel hard enough to impale a Rebel to the wall. Rushing forward, Baatar bounced a blaster shot back at one of his enemies, killing her, and leapt to the control console, chopping the chief engineer in half. With that, he inserted a computer spike to overwhelm the system's security and disable the self-destruct function of the engines.
"Alright, let's move it!" he yelled, with one of the Metalbenders tearing off a door at the end of the engine room, with another tossing a grenade through it. The squad of Rebels charging down the hall were blown apart by the explosion, before Baatar led the charge down the hall. The Rebels on the other end kept firing but he deflected every shot that came close, while his squad behind him fired back at their enemies. As they went down the hall, one of the Metalbenders realized a Rebel was hiding in a doorway they were about to pass and shot the terrorist as soon as he leaned out.
As they made their way to the main broadcast center, Baatar knocked one of the doors down with the Force. Grabbing his blaster, he shot three Rebels with one hand while deflecting two shots with his sword. Holstering his blaster, he sent a barrage of lightning into several technicians who were trying to destroy their equipment before it could be captured. A Wookiee emerged from behind the communication equipment and fired her bowcaster. While Baatar managed to block it, the shot was so powerful it knocked his lightsaber out of the one-handed grip he was using. One of the Metalbenders then made a move and the Wookiee hovered in the air, into the path of a second Wookiee's bowcaster, killing her. A different Metalbender moved similar to the first, and that Wookiee was sent flying forward, before hovering in the middle of the room. The rest of the Rebels were restrained, while the second boarding party reported they had captured the bridge.
"Major," the Metalbender focusing on the Wookiee said. "These furry beasts have an unusually high amount of iron in their blood. This guy won't be escaping my grip." Said Wookiee whined softly, sounding like an animal in pain, and Baatar order he be restrained more humanely, leading to him being dropped and then Metalbent floor plates restraining the giant, furry being.
"Great work, everyone," Baatar said to his squad. "Intelligence will soon tear this place apart, and you will gain a commendation for this training excursion from Lord Vader."
"May the Father of Understanding guide us," the Metalbender squad said in response, frightening the captured Rebels even more than they were already. Baatar called for pickup, telling the nearby Star Destroyer Accuser that the Rebel ship was secure.
"I heard rumors of new Force-using Imperials," one of them said. "I didn't know they were the Cult of Vader."
"Our world is primitive, but Darth Vader found it, and saved it from the Hutts," one of the Metalbenders said. "He has opened us to a larger world, and we revere Lord Vader, the Father of our world's Understanding." At that moment, Baatar saw something behind the Rebel's back and yanked it into his hands. It was a transmitter of some sort, still functioning.
"Shut the link!" the tech yelled, to which the line on the transmitter died. "Thanks for revealing more about yourself to our friends. Don't bother asking, we don't know who's on the other end, exactly."
"You better be lying, for your sake," Baatar retorted. "Or the IT-O droids will hurt you for nothing!" With that, the stormtroopers Captain Piett had sent entered the room, confirming the ship was secure, to which the EUA party went back to their own shuttle. Their next training mission would be on a far more pleasant world, and mostly be about learning to work with Imperial soldiers. Apart from that, Aldhani would be a pleasant assignment, just in time for an impressive meteor shower of local renown.
Obi-Wan wasn't sure what to think of Firebending philosophy, as Mizuki explained. She said that passion was integral to Firebending, but from how she explained it, it sounded like focusing on a goal and drawing strength from it, as opposed to letting your own desires run wild. "Look, I'm not my Granddad, a Fire Sage, or a Sun Warrior," the Fire Princess said. "They can explain it far better. The main thing they said, however, is that Fire is alive, for good and bad. Despite what fools, both those that follow Sozin's ideas and foreigners who fought them, say, fire isn't about destroying all in your path."
"Well, maybe your elders can better explain it to me, one day," Obi-Wan said. They then looked at Luke. He'd managed to block three fourths of the training remote's shots. He'd have to practice with the blinders, later, but for now, it was time to better explain to him, and Mizuki, Jedi philosophy.
"For my entire life, I was told that strong emotional attachments were dangerous, and the easiest road to the dark side," Cal began. "I saw how Bode's fatherly love for Kata was twisted into possessiveness by circumstances beyond his control, and that led him to hurt many people, and endanger the very daughter he was trying to protect. But Merrin's love for me gave me the strength to reject the dark side in my darkest hour."
"So, is love forbidden, or not?" a confused Mizuki asked.
"Luke's mother once asked that," Obi-Wan said, perking Luke's interest. "Your father replied that compassion, or as he defined it, unconditional love, was what Jedi value. Attachment, or conditional love, can easily turn possessive, however. But the story of your parents, is one for another day."
"Only you can decide how to balance the dynamic," Cal said, holding Merrin's hand as he did so. "Just be warned, in some ways, it is the hardest part of being a Jedi." At that moment, Obi-Wan decided to change the subject, somewhat.
"A Jedi's power comes from understanding the Force," the Jedi Master began. "From understanding that it has a will of its own." Merrin noticed Mizuki looked a little nervous at that statement and asked if there was a problem.
"Well, where I'm from, hearing voices no one else notices makes people believe you are crazy," the Firebender said. "Unless you are the Avatar, then talking to the ghosts of the past incarnations is just normal. Or it was, until Unalaq's actions during Harmonic Convergence."
"It's not like that," Obi-Wan said, deciding to hide how he'd talked to the ghost of Qui-Gon a few times. "The Force directs you more subtly than that, guiding you on where you have to go. Whether you obey it or not, however, is up to you. But beware more selfish impulses, for they are of the Dark Side."
"You know, you never actually explained what the Dark Side is," Luke noted.
"The Dark Side is the malevolent undercurrent of the Force," Obi-Wan began. "It encourages you to take the quick, easy path to your selfish desires. It is corrupting in itself and can be hard to resist. It is said that once you start down the dark path, it will dominate your destiny forever." Mizuki didn't believe that last part, thinking of how her grandfather Zuko and his sister Azula ultimately turned against the evils they were raised to believe in.
"I think we should finish this lesson with the Jedi code," Cal said. With Luke and Mizuki paying attention, Cal and Obi-Wan said the five lines of the ancient doctrine. "There is no Emotion, there is Peace."
"There is no Ignorance, there is Knowledge," Obi-Wan continued. "There is no Passion, there is Serenity."
"There is no Chaos, there is Harmony," Cal added, before he and Obi-Wan said the final line. "There is no Death, there is The Force." Mizuki and Luke were rather confused by what they had heard, but it sounded oddly comforting. Hopefully, they'd be able to understand it better, in time.
Darth Vader had come to Ba Sing Se at the invitation of Kuvira, to best prepare the EUA soldiers who were about to learn the ways of the Force. It was unlikely that any would be as powerful as Vader or his Apostles, but more Force-users in the Imperial military would strike fear into the hearts of its enemies. Moreover, it let him continue serving the Empire's aims as Aphra and others looked for his children. On the balcony he would speak from, there was a radio broadcaster that had been brought in so everyone on Elementia could hear his voice, with Imperial and Earth Nation flags flying from either side. As Vader went to the platform from which the EUA would hear him speak, the radio was turned on.
"You have all taken steps into the wider world," Vader began, with everyone from the North to South Pole hearing him. "Some of you have been opened to the ways of the Force, but many of you don't understand the Force. As the Father of your Understanding, it falls to me to educate you." He began with a simple explanation of how it was a source of energy created by all living things. "There are fools throughout history who deluded themselves into believing the Force has a will of its own, but it doesn't, no more than a flame. The Sith recognized this truth, and the Jedi attempted to exterminate them for it, saying we had fallen victim to the 'Dark Side' of the Force. The Sith have embraced this term, simply to differentiate ourselves from the Jedi, but in truth, there are no sides to the Force."
As Vader spoke, people around the world listened intently, some in awe, others in horror. "All of you here, my friends, have already passed the first lesson of the Sith," Vader continued to the EUA soldiers assembled before him. "While others gain power through understanding, the Sith, like you, gain understanding through power. Introspection is an unnecessarily long road, so we take the more practical solution in our training." Korra and Mako, who had flown Vader to Ba Sing Se, smiled intently alongside Kuvira. The ghosts of Aang and Roku appeared, alongside them, both looking rather shocked by the philosophy Vader had revealed he followed.
"Well, I can say that is rather...unnerving," Aang said, only Korra, her husband, and Kuvira hearing him.
"Well, Lord Vader said you were the sort to confuse practicality with villainy," Kuvira piped up at the ghost.
"There are those who confuse villainy with practicality," Roku replied, talking down to her.
"Don't take that tone with me," Kuvira retorted. "I'm transforming the Earth Nation into what it could have been long ago if people like you weren't terrified of every new thing. Or maybe it's because I'm a peasant by birth and was only adopted into nobility later on, that you oppose me."
"All people are equal," Aang said, stopping an argument before it could start. "And change isn't always a good thing."
"It's not always bad, either," Korra added as Vader continued.
"I won't be able to train all of you directly, so the Inquisitors will be your instructors," Vader said to the EUA soldiers as the assorted Inquisitors appeared in front of them. "Listen well, and they will guide you further on the path of the Sith." The various people listening around the world, from crowds huddled around radios in Republic City, to the Airbender family and their Imperial guardians in the Western Air Temple, couldn't turn away from the broadcast. Even for the ones who had gone into space, they had never heard the ideology of the Empire or that of the Sith.
"Listen well, for there is only one other thing I have to say," Darth Vader concluded. "Peace is a Lie, there is only Passion. Through Passion, I gain Strength. Through Strength, I gain Power. Through Power, I gain Victory. Through Victory, My Chains are Broken. The Force Shall Free Me. This is the Code of the Sith, and it is perfect in stating what we believe. Learn it by heart, and you shall prevail."
With the speech concluded, EUA soldiers, both in the plaza and across the Earth Nation, cheered, proclaiming their belief in the Father of Understanding. Many more in the Southern Water Tribe, and even in the URN, also cheered upon hearing the Sith Code. Many others around the world, however, were unnerved, or even terrified by the speech. Tenzin himself thought that, on a surface reading, it was the opposite of what Air Nomads were taught to believe, but perhaps there was more to it. Zuko thought it sounded like something his father and other warmongering Firebenders might embrace, while Katara wondered how Korra and Mako felt about it. Hopefully, the specifics would become clearer sooner rather than later, given how threatening they sounded.
I wanted to do another contrast between Jedi and Sith. I figured Wookiees would have more iron in their blood than Humans, so there is another race that Metalbenders can ragdoll. The assignment to Aldhani will affect the robbery. Anakin's conversation to Padme on the flight to Naboo isn't him making excuses, it's how Jedi are supposed to view love. Obi-Wan knows Anakin well enough that he made an educated guess about what Anakin might have said in such a situation.
Obi-Wan doesn't know what to think in relation to Mizuki's explanation of Firebending belief, but he knows the Fire Nation managed to turn away from genocidal conquests, so he's willing to listen. Yes, Azula will show up at some point.
Father of Understanding is the title supporters of Darth Vader have spun for him on Elementia. Also, I've watched AC walkthroughs. Kuvira likes to think anyone who disagrees with her methods is a stuffy aristocrat thumbing their nose at how an orphan peasant rose to the top. Everyone is rather intimidated by the Sith Code, and mentions of a Dark Side, but they aren't quite sure what to think of them.