Star Wars Rebels: Children of The Force

Chapter 12

(Ezra pov)

Emma follows us outside the Ghost. She's awfully quiet, I wonder why. I'll try and talk to her after training.

"Okay, so today we're going to do some lightsaber dueling. Emma, if you'd like, it might be nice for you to try your hand at it." Kanan offers. He's a lot more welcoming to her than he was to Jessie and Larissa, at first. I think he just needs to realize that sometimes our crew will get bigger, and that that's not a bad thing. 

"I'll just watch first, then maybe I'll try it." Emma says.

"Okay. Ezra, ready to duel me?" He asks me.

I grin. "Sure. You're going down. "

I activate my blue lightsaber and Kanan ignites his. I'll surprise him. I charge first and Kanan blocks my blow. I strike again but am parried. Kanan strikes now, and I barely parry his blade. Kanan does a kick and knocks my lightsaber out of my hand. He points his blade at me and I raise my hands in surrender. 

"Oh, I'm going down?" Kanan asks, and I laugh. 

"That was good, Ezra. Considering you haven't duelled much before, that was pretty good for a beginner. Emma, do you want to try?" He holds out his lightsaber to her. "You and Ezra could face."

A devious look appears in Emma's eyes when Kanan says that. She takes the lightsaber and turns to me. "Challenge accepted." 

I grin. "This is going to be easy."

"We'll see about that." She says, smiling. 

Kanan shows her how to activate the lightsaber and Emma's eyes widen at the sight of the blue blade in her hand. I use the Force to bring my lightsaber to me and I reactivate it, and go into a ready stance like I saw Kanan do. Kanan nods his approval. Emma simply holds her ignited lightsaber in front of her. 

"Duel!" Kanan shouts and backs away. I strike first again, and Emma manages to parry my blow. She backs away as I strike again, making my blow miss her entirely. She lunges and in my surprise, I stumble. Emma grins and leaps over me, aiming a lightsaber at my back when she lands. I drop my own lightsaber in surprise and surrender.

"Alright, you win." I tell her. "Now put the lightsaber away."

She deactivates it and I tackle her to the ground. "Ha!"

I take her weapon as she struggles. "Ezra! You cheater!" 

"I didn't cheat, I simply tricked you." 

She laughs as I take her hand and pull her up. "Sneak." 

"Why, thank you." I really like her. I've always kind of loved Emma, but I think I just realized it. I wonder... Does she like me back? I doubt it. We've always been friends. Just best friends, not lovers. 

"Good work, Emma." Kanan says, coming over to us. "That was really good. Good work, both of you." He heads back inside the Ghost. I turn to Emma. "You wanna go into town? Pick up a blaster?"

She hesitates. "I don't know. The Imperials are probably looking all over for me."

"Come on, Em. You can't stay inside forever." I urge and walk over to my air speeder. I look back at her. "You coming?"

A second later, she nods. "Yeah."

She climbs on and I climb on behind her. I wrap my arms around her so that I can reach the controls, and I feel a glow spread through me as we speed off.