Chapter 14

He hadn’t been joking about the itching powder.

At first it was as part of a lesson, a ‘mild irritant’ to practice both her concentration and how to Force Heal, just a little, without sinking into a trance. “You’ll rarely have time to heal in a fight, and if you have the opportunity to, it can be better spent elsewhere,” her master had told her. Some Jedi dealt with things like gas by slowing down their biological processes, or using the Force to aid them, and she’d be learning that too but ‘Every technique has its place’ had been another lesson.

By training the specific uses of the Force one could learn, in a variety of simulated situations, Master Lucian had shifted the exercises she’d completed previously from the theoretical, which she still sometimes had trouble with, to the practical, which she found much easier to grasp.

She could recite the Temple lessons taught to her about the uses of the Force, but, as she was learning, reciting lessons and understanding the lessons were two very different things. Turning a skill practiced on its own, at her own pace, with no distractions, into something that could be used in combat was not easy. However, being thrust into the situations where she needed to, instead of merely imagining it, was an excellent way to learn.

Anais had been working on evading blaster-fire from automated turrets, really devices that aimed and fired blaster rifles, when he’d called her to halt. She’d been using small barriers to try to block the shots, but was still tagged by every ninth shot or so. “What now?” she’d asked, annoyed, familiar with the pattern.

“Good use of shields, but why aren’t you stopping the shots?” her master had asked, curious.

She’d waved towards her lightsaber, hanging at the entrance of training hall. She’d left it behind in her room, once, when he told her she wasn’t going to use it, only for him to tell her to always carry it unless she had a good reason, and not using it in that day’s lesson wasn’t a good reason.

“Because you aren’t letting me use my saber?” she’d asked, incredulously. With it, and her Soresu training, this would be easy, and, at the rate they were firing, she’d be hit by one shot in forty, if that.

Waving her to the side, he’d taken her place, and started the turrets. At first he’d just. . . stepped. An odd, almost drunken looking dance as he weaved back and forth, shots missing him by inches, but missing him all the same. Then he’d started to use barriers, the black, wispy circles of Force at first just appearing before he’d be hit, standing still and letting them take the shots, but appearing less as he started to move, mixing the two defenses.

Then he’d seemed to grab the shield, using them to deflect the shots, and she stared, his presence in the Force unusually open, showing her how he did it. However, even this direct instruction, useful as it is, wouldn’t be enough to use the shields as he was, though, she had to admit, it did help. Then the shields disappeared, and he gestured, forcing the turrets to point down, servos working as they tried to pull the rifles back up. Then another gesture, and they were let go, re-aiming at him only for the safeties on all the weapons to be flicked on, triggers pulling uselessly.

“Every technique has its place,” he’d reminded her for what felt like the hundredth time. “Focus on one, and you will be skilled with it, but unless you are a true master of it, that will not be enough. Learn a few, with pre-determined uses, and things suddenly become a great deal easier.”

Flicking the safeties off, he leapt away from the barrage of blaster fire, moving back and forth, but without the highly-controlled, precise movements he’d had before. He looked to be dodging a bit like Jorel might move, or like she had. Shields popped into place, just long enough to catch a bolt, but not strong enough to deflect them fully, and he didn’t stop moving, staring at the turrets. A flick of the fingers, and one of the turrets, the one she’d felt with Force-born certainty would hit him, was turned to the side, the shot going wild. Finding a moment of peace between volleys, he pushed in the Force, a tighter, more concentrated movement than the turning of the barrel, switching the safety of one rifle off. This, in turn, had made it easier to dodge the others, and he kept that pattern going until they were all off, and he stood, calmly. “Now you.”

It’d taken her over thirty tries to do it without getting hit more than once.

That said, the feeling of victory she’d felt, a pure and heartfelt happiness, had been worth it, as had Master Lucian’s honest praise. Then he’d asked her to do it again, and halfway through her run, he’d tossed a handful of itching powder at her.

Needless to say, she didn’t repeat her previous performance.

And thus her days went. Seemingly impossible task, explanation, exhibition, success, complication to make the task seemingly impossible once more. Rinse, praise, get covered in oil, repeat. The tasks varied, but the structure did not. Like holding a handstand with one arm, Force Control keeping her body supernaturally strong and steady to let her do so with ease, but then she needed to use the other hand to lift a weight with Telekinesis, and then thread it through a series of floating hoops. Then she was timed. Then the hoops moved. Then she had to balance a weight on her feet. Then the disk she was holding herself up on started to move. And then the itching powder came.

She’d managed to find where he’d stored it, and dust his robe with it when he’d taken it off to fix a turret she pulled a bit too hard to the side. He’d put it on, looked her right in the eyes, not said a word, and continued the lesson as normal, which wasn’t fair at all. The fact that, anything he asked of her, he was more than willing to show her after she’d tried at least once was the only thing that made it bearable.

But, she couldn’t deny it was working.

Running through the track, which seemed to change every day, she kept a low level of Force Control going, her steps almost unnaturally long and loping, but letting her move with deceptive speed. Turning a corner, wires stretched all across the hallway, each one, if pulled, would set off a puff of flame. Not enough to do more than hurt a moment, but enough to indicate an otherwise debilitating injury.

She knew she couldn’t thread them all, but her task wasn’t to do so, it was to get to the other side. Stopping for a moment to gather herself, knowing if she waited too long a hidden trap would activate to keep her moving, to better simulate the ‘you’re being chased’ aspect of the test, she gathered the Force around her. Thrusting her hands out, she let out a great wave of Telekinesis. It wasn’t focused, she still couldn’t do that with both strength and precision, but this one didn’t need to be.

The hallway lit up with flame, a barrier pulled up in front of her, the ‘blast’ pushing harmlessly past her, leaving the hallway free. Dashing down it, she turned the corner, starting to move down it as gravity inverted, and she smoothly turned with it, running along the ceiling. Two thirds of the way down, the floor crumbled, revealing a cushion lined pit. The first time it’d been terrifying, the fifth time it’d been annoying, now it barely registered as she blasted down and back with telekinesis, like she would for a jump. It wouldn’t be enough to rise high into the air, especially without solid ground to jump from, but with the push angled backwards to move her forward, and pulling her legs up to clear the gap, she made it across, standing up straight as she ran. She was still moving with Force-granted speed as gravity switched back and she hit the far wall, pushing off of it into a large room full of training drones.

She’d frozen the first time she’d seen them, which was a mistake, and this time she kept moving, the droids trying to acquire her as a target, their tiny processors only able to handle so much information. As artificial beings, they had no minds to Confuse with the Force, but their movements were simplistic, only their flights around a target chaotic. Pushing her senses out, combining the two disciplines (though her master would call them one) of Force Sense and Farsight, she took in the room as she ran, and started to dodge, already two fifths of the way across the room when they locked onto her.

The dozens of training droids started to fire, and she saw the paths the bolts would take a second before they did, a pattern of criss-crossing red lines centered on her and her path. She dodged, never taking to the air, not committing to the arc that would’ve locked her into, shoving a few droids away without turning to look at them, though still needing to wave her hands, the paths of their low-powered bolts spinning away and opening up paths.

She knew it would be a hundred times harder with living opponents, who could react and work together, but her current level of skill was just enough to reach the other side, half-formed barriers blocking the few shots she couldn’t dodge, only receiving a glancing blow to her forearm. From the lack of the buzzer, her Master decided it wouldn’t be enough of a strike to cause her to fail, and she pressed on.

More and more rooms she pushed through, dangers avoided or countered, only the barest of ‘damage’ taken, before she turned the last corner and entered the training hall they normally used, where Master Lucian stood, waiting, his metal sword in one hand, her saber in the other.

“What?” Anais asked, not sure what this meant. “Did I pass?”

“Not yet,” he informed her, a small smile on his lips, as he tossed her the lightsaber. Reflexively checking it, she saw it was set for it’s full cutting power. He held his sword in front of himself, “Fight,” he commanded, dashing forward so fast he was almost a blur.

Without thinking she activated her blade, catching the blow with her own, already moving as the massive power behind the slash wasn’t something she could match. Locking her arm she used it to push herself away, flying back a dozen feet even as he closed again, sword coming high in a sideways cut that she knew would take her head off if she didn’t stop it.

Blocking it, this one didn’t have the massive power behind it, not throwing her to the side, as she was prepared for, but knocking her to the side, his sword twisting down to slash her side. He knew if she wasn’t careful he’d actually slash her, having done so before. It would end the fight, and she’d be tasked to stabilize herself, her master stepping in if she couldn’t. Even if she could, he’d still heal her completely, so that she didn’t even have a scar, the only thing left was her experiences

With her free hand, she created a Barrier, not perpendicular, to block the blow, but angled, to defect it.

“Good,” he smiled, his slash sent off to the side, his free hand coming in for a punch, her own blade arcing in to hit him. He spun away rather than get hit, turning the spin into a more powerful blow, but she was already moving out of range, darting back in to stab him when his sword went wide, hitting nothing but air.

She missed, barely, as he turned the missed spinning strike into a jump to the side, landing and re-setting his guard. She took the offensive, and he let her, either because he knew it was her weak-point, or because he was testing her.

She slashed out, not stopping to strike, already away when his return strike came, leaning on her Master’s specialty of Ataru to cover her natural hesitancy to strike with her own style. He followed, and she twisted, leaning back into defensive Soresu she favored, his first two blows normal, but she felt the disturbance in the Force as he empowered his body, ducking under the normal seeming third blow. She came in for a low stab to his stomach, catching an empowered knee to the chin for the attempt, the man having seen it coming, stepping around the lunge and hitting her.

Her vision blurred for a moment as she went high into the air, reflexively jumping with the blow to lessen the damage, but she re-focused, and twisted mid-air as he moved to where she was set to land. A blast of telekinesis diverted her path, pushing him off-center for a step, and she hit the ground, twisting around even as her Master charged for her, stumbling half-way.

He’d feigned injury before, to help him train against ‘those who’d use deceit instead of skill’, and she jumped on him, saber flashing out to both strike and avoid a possible counter-strike, only to be bodily picked up and tossed, Master Lucian easily bypassing her Force Presence, which normally kept Jedi from affecting each other directly, and sent her tumbling.

“Not now,” he told her, and springing to her feet, she hesitated. He’d feigned physical injury or weakness, but hadn’t told her to stop as part of her sparring. Not dropping her guard, she waited, feeling outwards into the Force, and almost stumbled herself. She had a sense of something else, something massive around her, only seen in how it pressed against her Master’s presence, the horizon hemming in a storm, if the horizon could move.

“What. . .?” Anais asked, knowing she likely wasn’t going to get an answer.

The Presence passed, and her master sighed, muttering, “At least we got this long,” to himself.

“What was that?” she reiterated, now that he wasn’t concentrating on whatever that was.

“That, my Padawan, was the Will of the Force,” the young-looking man informed her with a resigned sigh. “Or at least how I perceive it. And we are leaving tomorrow morning.”

“The. . . what?” she questioned. “Isn’t the Will of the Force supposed to be quiet, soft, only the masters able to hear it deep in meditation?” It’s what she’d been told, over and over again. That her teachers, her ‘betters’ a dark part of her whispered, had been able to hear it when she obviously could not, being a mere Initiate, and that was why she must obey them.

However, he nodded, “And to most, it is. But to those strong enough, with a solid enough. . . let’s say connection, it can be clear as the spoken word. Or as loud as a shout in one’s ear. What it rarely is, however, is informative. ‘Go here’, ‘talk to this person’, ‘get involved in this war’, never ‘Here’s what’s going on and here’s what I need you to do to avoid catastrophe!’” he complained, with the air of an old complaint.

“Um. . .” Anais said, not sure how to respond to that.

He shook his head. “You’ve gotten better, good enough I feel comfortable taking you out of here, though. Probably why it waited this long to ask, so I guess I should be grateful.”

She had to ask, “So, how good am I?”

“Combat wise? You’d probably rank among what passes for a Knight nowadays,” he replied casually, walking for the door, waving for her to follow.

Her first instinct was to repress the thrill of pleasure that assessment sent through her, but, remembering her training here, she didn’t shove it down, letting it pass over her, noting it and what it meant, and let it go in its own time, not clinging to it. “And in other ways?”

“Dark Side Resistance of modern Knights, at least I hope it isn’t higher than that. Modern Knight level healing, again possibly more,” the centuries old man listed off. “Everything else, from negotiating, to stealth, to piloting, and more you’re still a Padawan, Padawan.”

She nodded, expecting that from his comments. “And by your standards?”

“Shift Knight to mid or high Padawan, the others to low Padawan or high Initiate. Given I haven’t done more than give you the barest of training in most fields, and we have been together for only months, that’s to be expected,” he shrugged. “But I only rate a Knight at negotiation, or leadership, or large-scale strategy. Enough to get by on my own, but no more. Those were always the Little One’s forte, more than mine. But, while being well rounded is good, you only need to pass the Trials to be a Knight, after all.”

“And would I?” she asked, nodding at his immediate, “No,” but surprised at the added, “Nowadays, though, you might come close. If circumstances permitted.”

She hesitated, speeding up to come up next to him. “R-really?” she questioned, incredulous.

“If you were anyone else’s apprentice,” he nodded. “The Trial of Skill you’d pass,” he stated, motioning towards the track she’d just finished. “The Trial of Courage? Likely, depending on the method. Anything Dark Side related, at least the kind of thing they would normally give a prospective Knight? Absolutely. More often that not, though, from what Er’izma says, it’s really just a more complex Trial of Skill half the time,” he shrugged.

“The Trial of Flesh?” she asked, not surprised when he turned to toss a small handful of itching powder at her. It splashed against a barrier she threw up in an instant. A touch of Healing, all she could do without concentrating, cut the feelings from the irritant in half, and the rest she ignored. “Is that a yes?” she questioned, deadpan.

He smiled, “Between that, and the fact that you can heal a sliced stomach on your own? Yes, Anais, if things were fair, you would.”

“Spirit?” she continued, noting his words.

He hesitated, grimacing, as if the words he was about to say annoyed him. “I don’t know. Not yet. And likely not for a bit. I’d say yes, but I’ve been. . . wrong before. If they use something as simple as a Dark Item, low to mid-range, then probably, but there are more ways to test one’s spirit than merely facing the Dark, and against a true Dark Artefact? No, but they shouldn’t be testing you with one of those. Not that that’s stopped them before.”

“And Insight?” Anais asked, already knowing the answer.

Her master agreed, laughing, though it was gentle, “You’d fail, Padawan. Even if they only tested you like they would others, you would fail.”

Out of all the Trials, the one that tested ‘Insight’ was the newest. ‘Newest’ being a general term, as it was almost a thousand years old. The Trial of Insight was one of intelligence and perception, added when Jedi could fight the Sith, complete dangerous assignments, withstand physical hardship, and face the darkness that dwelt within their own spirits, only to find themselves robbed by common thieves, or taken in by conmen, the lack of true Darkness within the criminals hearts obscuring the Knights to the all-too-real danger they could pose. However, the other things her Master said stood out to her.

“And they’ll test me more than they would others?” said Padawan prompted.

He laughed again, this time not nearly as nice. “They’ll be looking for a reason to fail you. Given who I am. Given who my previous apprentices were. Given how they feel about me. No, you’ll be a Master, by their standards, before they’ll let you be a Knight. And they won’t accept battle-field Trials either, insisting on doing them where they can watch, and where they can stack the deck against you.”

She nodded, having expected that, but he wasn’t done, “You’ll be a Knight, before they’ll let you be a Knight, and by the time you’re a Master, like the Little One, you won’t care what a bunch of wizened, out of touch, arrogant, self-important, hypocritical busybodies ‘declare’ you,” he frowned, something between anger, disgust, sadness, and resignation in his tone. “Then again, the only difference is in the permissions you have in the temple and the esteem that those who do not know you hold you in. The approval of the Jumping Bean and his lackeys mean very little to the greater galaxy, you’ll find.”

“. . . Not a fan of the High Council, are you Master?” she had to remark, smiling a little.

The returning dry look was completely deserved, “Padawan, your powers of observation are great indeed. Maybe you truly can pass the Trial of Insight after all!”

The returned to the common area in silence, the feelings of. . . almost melancholic nostalgia building, though she didn’t know why, and she hesitated, not going to her room to shower. Her Master started to amble over to the kitchen to make dinner, cooking being yet another skill he’d insisted she’d learn the basics of, but in which he’d outstripped her, and she was glad to let him take the lead on. “Master Lucian?” she asked.

He stopped, turning, as if he’d expected the question. With the Force Bond between them, he might've, able to feel whatever it was that she was now. “Yes, Padawan Anais?”

It was hard to put into words, but even as she gave to it, she thought she understood what she was feeling. “Are we ever coming back here?”

Pausing, he cocked his head, as if listening to something only he could hear. “Not for a while, Anais. The future, despite what some might suggest, is not set in stone. However it runs in certain. . . paths, the trail fainter and fainter the further one looks. It splits and forks, but, if we were to follow the Will, at least as I understand it, we won’t return soon, possibly for years, possibly at all. I’ll leave a note for her, in case I miss our meeting,” he said, more to himself than Anais.

“Her?” she asked.

Her Master’s eyes went distant. “A childhood friend, from my time as a Padawan.” His eyes sharpened, almost too much, and his presence in the Force, the dark storm, seemed to freeze, crystallizing into obsidian shot through with glowing veins of dark lightning. He looked to her, then down to her breast, where her pendant hung, underneath her shirt, instructing in quiet tones, “Keep that, and it may help you one day. In many ways.” His voice hung in the air for a moment, seeming to reverberate in the air.

“Master?” she asked, suddenly unsure of what was happening, repressing the urge to reach up and touch the metal-encased, bloody talon.

He shook his head, blinking, and his presence returned to normal, a hint of something else peeking from inside the maelstrom, but quickly covered once more. “Just do so, Padawan,” he said, turning away. “Wash up, and start packing. We leave at dawn.”