NEW BEGINNING - Book I

Chapter 1

The Apprentice Tournament

The next day Anakin went to the Combat Training Chamber early in the morning. The first two matches took traditionally place in this chamber. He could already hear the sibilant lightsabers crashing against the ones of their adversaries in the hallway. This remembered him how much he loved to watch these friendly competitions with Ahsoka. They always talked about the things the initiates could have done better. Ahsoka...he quickly checked for her force presence and was calmed when he felt it. But he also recognised that finding her presence got more difficult the longer she was gone.

He entered the Combat Training Chamber and tried to focus on the battles. The group of younglings was younger than he had expected. They were even younger than Ahsoka when she got assigned to Anakin, but Ahsoka was assigned earlier due to her skills. Those younglings were only kids, about eight or nine years old. He assumed that it got more usually that the younglings got assigned earlier because of the lack of jedi as a consequence of the war. As soon as the younglings were old enough they were sent to the battlefields. Anakin disapproved this decision of the council. After all they were just children. Innocent children. A jedi knight hold a short speech before the first match started for which a human boy and a male Nautolan had been selected. Anakin recognised the boy as the one who warned him during his fight against Barris Offee.

The human boy easily disarmed the Nautolan three times and scored the three burns on his opponent. Anakin had to admit that he was quite good with a lightsaber for his age, but his adversary wasn't very skilled. Nevertheless, Anakin would keep an eye on him.

In eight rounds the young human boy whose name is Petro Dameron showed that it wasn't just luck in the first match. No, quite the reverse! He was more than just skilled. Petro had everything a good padawan needed. He was fast, intelligent, strong, he had the right strategies, he could use the force quite well and he was...arrogant. But all in all Petro had shown that he was more than ready for becoming an apprentice.
For the last match a normal training room was chosen. But Anakin was sure that there would be some hidden traps or something like this. A male Wookiee named Gungi, a female Tholothian named Katooni and Petro were the three younglings who made it in the last round. Suddenly the ground started moving. It was like an earthquake. Four different environmental areas have arisen from the floor. One was a forest zone, next to it was lava with small stone platforms, the next also contained stone platforms, but these were much smaller and higher. And the last was a simple pool with nothing to stay on. The three opponents were placed in the different zones: Katooni in the zone with the high rocks, Gungi in the forest and Petro in the lava zone. They were given the signal and the last match started. The Tholothian and the Wookiee both headed towards the lava zone.

'It looks like we're the best.' The girl mentioned.
'Yes, and I'm THE BEST.'
'I wouldn't be so sure about that, Petro.'
'But I am, Katooni.' he grinned confidentially.
Obviously, the Wookiee and the Tholothian had decided to eliminate Petro at first, so they could fight against each other afterwards. They circled him, but he stayed calm, ready to deflect every blow that might come.
'You know, that's not very faire, two against one.'
'Why? I thought you are the best? Can't the best take two opponents at once?'
The Tholothian gave the Wookiee a signal and they both attacked. Shortly before the two training lightsabers of his opponents could have burned him, Petro performed a force jump. While the two others below crashed against each other they burned their opponent. Petro landed smoothly on his feet grinning widely.
'Oh, come on! You have to be faster than this.'
After they stood on their feet again, the Wookiee and the Tholothian looked at each other and the girl nodded. They stretched out their hands and pushed Petro back with the force. He slammed hard against a metal wall and fell to the ground next to the lava. The two others took their chance and sprinted towards their fellow initiate ready to take him out. But Petro rolled to the side and jumped to his feet. He sprinted directly towards the two others and slit beneath the Wookiee's legs. He ran further and jumped over the lava. He went to the zone with the high platforms and climbed on one of them. The two others followed. Each initiate was standing on his own platform now. Gungi and Katooni approximated him while jumping from one rock to the next and so on. Petro pushed Gungi back with a strong force push and the wookiee landed with a giant splash in the pool. Now he could concentrate on Katooni.
'Don't you want to give up? It would spare us a lot of time this way. '
'Sorry, Petro. I can't let you win. Wouldn't be good for your ego.'
'You know, you have not the slightest chance against me.'
The girl looked annoyed.
'Ahh, you're so arrogant!'
'I'm just aware of my abilities.' A wide grin appeared on Petro's lips.
Katooni jumped forward to attack Petro who performed a backflip and landed on the rock behind him. Only to jump over her head again. He chipped off the façade of one of the rocks and flew directly into Katooni's direction. She wasn't fast enough to react, Petro hit her slightly with the training lightsaber on the arm. She groaned in frustration.
Gungi was now back on his feet and attacked Petro from behind in flight, but he turned around like lightning and tried to hit the Wookiee with his training lightsaber at his legs. Gungi performed a side role in the air and could manage to get out of the lightsaber's radius. Meanwhile Katooni attacked Petro from the side. He blocked her blow and jumped down. He ran to the forest zone. The trees stood close together and you had only a one meter view because the trees were overgrown with all kinds of plants. Petro climbed up a tree and waited for the two others to come.