My Unfortunate Fate

chapter 7

Peace is obsolete.

We enter the training room, there's a lot of open space, more than the training centers I used as a youngling.

There seemed to be a closed-off meditation area, next to a few piles of objects, like stones, decommissioned droids, sticks and other, smaller, things. The floor had markings, probably for more controlled combat, and some droids used to practice deflecting blaster hits.

I mostly stood around, slowly walking and observing the many tools I had trained with in the past, most if not all were very familiar to me but more advanced. Anakin looked shocked, he was motionless, only taking in all the aspects of the area, I kept forgetting that he never had the training I did, so this must've been mesmerizing.

"Where should we begin?" I question, knocking him out of his haze.

He then turns to me and smirks, placing his hand closer to the belt around his waist, under his cloak. "I think you already know."

I did. We simultaneously ignited our lightsabers and lunged towards each other in an attack position, ditching our cloaks in the process.

I had already set my weapon to a heat setting low enough so as to not be harmful or deadly. However, just a few seconds into the fight, I could tell he didn't do the same.

Perhaps the padawan did not know it was common to not risk your partner's life with every swing. There was no way to get him to change that setting, so instead I set mine to match it.

We fought through almost the entire space, pushing each other back or forward in every move, his fighting style wasn't based on technique, definitely fixated on power, it was focused, so he often used both hands to wield the weapon. I countered these attacks swiftly, turning all this strength back in the other direction, he caught on to this move quickly. Through the fight, I eventually started matching his moves, not realizing that I was comprimizing my own defenses.

After waiting for the opening, Anakin slowed down his advance and took advantage of my delayed reaction to disarm me, sending my saber flying across the room, then tripping me and tackling me to the ground, before putting his blade to my throat. I was terrified, not because I could die, right then and there, but because the person putting me in that situation was only fifteen years old. The thought of someone so young having the ability to strike me, or anyone else, down so quickly was nothing short of scary.

I maintained a neutral expression, though that wouldn't be enough of a mask to hide my emotions.

Sensing my fear, he begins to laugh and lifts the weapon from my neck. "Come on kid, you know I wouldn't hurt you."

He helped me up afterwards, I then summoned my lightsaber and returned it safely to the inside of my robe. "How many times do I have to ask you to not call me that?" I scoff.

The boy stored his weapon back into its rightful place, still holding an amused look on his face. "Quite a few."

I proceed to rub my neck, since being pushed to the ground isn't exactly comfortable, and the strain on it grew from trying to stay alive. "You aren't supposed to kill me, by the way," I remark.

"If I were trying to, you'd already be dead."

I took a loud breath, to show how tired of this behaviour I was. "We were supposed to go easy on each other."

"I'll keep that in mind next time." I appreciated the openness to change, he wasn't quite as arrogant as before, when it came to safety at least.

"I think we should try lifting those stones, over there." Anakin nods and agrees to let me go first.