Dark Empire: A Star Wars Tale

Chapter 6: The Padawan Dilemma

Nyx's ship, The Fury, was far more comfortable inside than it appeared to be. On the surface, it appeared to be more of a warship than a transport, heavily armored, and yet Nyx swore that it was faster than it looked. Once Eevie entered the ship, she thought it looked something closer to a high class appartment. Obviously, Nyx was well off.

"This is an old Mandalorian gunship. Where did you managed to get your hands on one of these?" Ayato asked, flopping down on one of the fancy padded chairs.

"Huh?" Nyx seemed a tad on edge with the jedi on board, and he shrugged. "Unlike the last purge, the planet is still livable, which means I can slip down into an abbanonded hanger and take whatever I want without worrying about atmospheric poison."

"If you say so," Ayato looked back over at Eevie. "Near the bottom of the sabers you're carrying is a dial, turn each all the way to the left."

Eevie did as instructed, but didn't see anything important happening. "Now what?"

"Pick one, turn it on." Obviously, he didn't really want to put any energy into actually training her.

Putting the one in her left hand on a nearby table, she pressed the ignition button and held the blade away as a blue blade of light hummed to life.

"Woah! Don't slice my stuff!" Nyx called over his shoulder as he prepared the ship for take off.

"Oh relax, I had her turn the blade off. Well, she dulled it far as it can do. She's wielding an electric stick, not a lightsaber," Ayato said, reaching into a black duffle he had gotten from his house before they left. He brought out a sphere, which Eevie quickly realized was a training drone. "Until I can mess with the holographics, we're going old school for this."

"Who said I have... oh never mind, I'll get you the access panel when we're in hyperspace," Nyx mumbled.

"Wait, what's happening?" Eevie raised the saber, the blade humming through the air. She was surprised that it didn't feel like she was holding a fancy flashlight, but couldn't decide what the sensation actually felt like.

"I'm turning this on, it's going to shoot at you, which will sting, and you're going to try to block it," Ayato said, letting the training probe hover off his hands into the air.

Eevie's heart skipped a beat. "Is this how you trained other jedi when- OW!" The drone had fired a laser when she was talking, and she couldn't move the blade fast enough to stop it from striking her in the shoulder.

"What makes you think I did the training?"

"You have all this- ow! Stuff!" She had taken a swing at another laser, missing badly and getting hit in the side. "Why else would you have it? Obviously you haven't been using it."

Ayato didn't say anything for several seconds, in which time she was hit by another laser. "I had two padawans. One of them, hopefully, is alive... And no, I didn't train her this way. I trained her when the galaxy was at peace, and I had the chance to train her properly. She went on to become a jedi knight, and last I heard, survived the massacre at the temple. But that was... a long time ago..."

"And the second one?" Nyx asked, spinning around in his chair to talk. The ship was beginning to rise, and Eevie briefly saw a small monkey-like droid messing with the controls, but her focus tore away as she tried to avoid a laser, to no avail.

"... He was killed, still just a boy... I failed him. Which is why, Eevielyn, I'm not training you. I'm placeholding until we can find a surviving jedi willing to take you. It was my fault... I failed to train him right. I won't lead you to your death with my failure."

Eevie managed to connect the lightsaber with a laser shot, glancing it just past her own head. "What happened, that day I mean. You hear a lot of stories... sorry if it's..." She couldn't find the words to phrase her exact thoughts.

"... An old friend of mine, he always warned that the Jedi weren't paying enough attention. The council didn't believe him, not wanting to give into the fear that darkness was gathering on the horizon. I tried to... it doesn't matter. End of the day, when the sith reared their head again, we expected only two, as it has been since Darth Bane... not an army. We tried our best, but the surprise element, traitorous jedi in our midst... it was chaos."

"Traitorous jedi... you mean The Sorcerer? Darth Arcanus?" Nyx turned back to the controls, and the ship began to move forward, then up into the air as Nyx.

"Yeah... he was one of them," Ayato said, sitting up straighter.

"Why is he called the-"

"I think that's enough questions about the past. Right now, you need to worry about survival," he said. "Now, I need to concentrate on fixing my arm, so shush. Just keep trying to block the lasers." Ayato crossed his legs, holding his broken arm in place with his other.

Nyx turned back around, gesturing for her to come closer, mouthing, "Turn it off."

The moment the saber blade vanished, the training probe stopped shooting. "Huh," she whispered to herself, then snuck over towards Nyx. Ayato either didn't care, or was too focused to notice.

"Darth Arcanus," Nyx whispered to her. "It's said that what he can do with the force is basically magic, it's why they called him the sorcerer."

"But, aren't there witches who use magic?" Eevie asked softly. "We had some pass through briefly a few years ago."

"Yeah, but they still use the force, they just call it something else. The force is just what the jedi call it, but it's all the same thing. Harnessing the energy of the universe, blah blah blah. Arcanus seems to do something else entirely... it's hard to explain."

"Have you met him?"

"... no, but he destroyed my home planet. His ship, The Apophis, along with his fleet, spent days just... everything's gone. I don't know how I survived, but I'm not the only one. My brother, he wants revenge, rightfully so. I just... I can't face off against a master of the dark side. If Ayato hadn't been there, I'd never have taken shots at the droids either... just not the way I'm wired anymore. Not violent by design, so to speak, to the great disapointment of my father."

Eevie and Nyx just sat in silence for a little while he jumped the ship into hyperspace, then he finally said, "Want me to actually show you how to use that thing?" He gestured at the lightsaber in her hand.

"Do you know how?"

"A bit. It isn't just a fancy laser sword, but it isn't the first time I've held one. And no, I'm not, nor have I ever been, a jedi."

Ayato spent the next hour in the medation he was using to repair his body, and in that time, Nyx had taken the other saber, which had a green blade, turned off the training drone, and was showing her the basics. He taught her that to better use the saber, it wasn't about swinging the handle, but guiding the energy of the blade through the air. It seemed to help, especially after he showed her some basic blocks to use against blaster fire. Unfortunatly, that was where his "expertise" ended, and she ended up turning the drone back on to practice what she had just learned. It still wasn't all that easy for her, but she was now at least capable of blocking every other shot at least, with much difficulty.

It was clear to her Ayato was planning to pawn her off, so Eevie resigned herself to the knowledge that she would have to learn more about the force itself on her own. For now at least, she had something. So why did she feel the impending sense that their troubles were only beginning?