When I joined my clan for class I was surprised to find out that Ahsoka was in this clan. In my original life I had watched the movies and most of the shows but I had only watched through the clone wars once and hadn't had the time to watch the ahsoka show. Most things outside common Star Wars knowledge I had gained was from fanfics, wookieepedia and random videos I had watched. I had also forgotten most of what I knew or it was buried till something reminded me.
What I did know was that my next couple years would be boring as the most exciting thing we would learn is the basics of saber forms. As I expected the entire morning was spent learning about the Jedi code with some normal classes like math, history, and science mixed in. We were all 4 years old so most of it was stuff our little minds could take in so for my adult mind it was all incredibly easy. Lunch passed by without anything exciting either and was made worse by the fact that the food was like bland oatmeal with some meat and crackers.
The rest of the day was spent on more Jedi code crap and we eventually got to use training sabers. It was mostly to let us fool around with the sabers and teach us to be careful with them as they still gave nasty shocks when you got hit with them. The next few days passed by in the same way till we actually began real saber training. We donned the weird blinding helmets and the small blaster droids were activated.
The others struggled with the zap bolts but as I was already blind and used the force to see I could easily block the shots from my droid. The instructor knew of this and quickly upped the speed, power, and angles of the bolts. The increased difficulty level did give me some trouble but I still blocked most shots. When we all eventually got to a level the instructor deemed competent enough we were sent to a different instructor to begin learning Form 1 Shii-Cho. I wanted to get a good mastery of Forms 1, 2, and 3 as they offered the most survivability in pretty much any situation.
Form 1 was the base of lightsaber combat and was one of the most reliable forms. Form 2 Makashi was made for 1-1 lightsaber combat and was almost a direct counter to Shii-Cho. Form 3 was a highly defensive form that would flow perfectly with Form 1s aggressive yet defensive technique. Mastery of the first three forms would almost guarantee my survival. I was however suffering a problem with my technique learning. The training with the hovering droids was meant to teach instinct and control over combat precognition.
With me having to use the force constantly to see it was hard for me to get anything from the training unless I completely stopped my force sight. Doing so made me completely blind and caused me to lose concentration and get hit. My other senses had drastically improved due to my blindness and the force sight helped to make out what my senses told me. I basically had daredevils sight but blurry and out of focus.
Training had gotten considerably more difficult when I decided to completely stop using force sight and rely on the force to tell me what I needed to know. In my free time I would find a training room all to myself and use every hover droid there to beat the forms and other knowledge into myself. Sure it was pretty masochistic but I had my beskar helmet mask and the bolts were only small shocks so it wasn't that bad.
Training like this was best for form 3 and I progressed as far as I could without actual opponents. Form 1 could be trained with this but without anyone to attack I was simply going through the techniques. Form 2 was obviously my weakest, I had no one to train with in this form so I could only go through it and with the others and try to incorporate it into my training against the droids.
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At 4 year's into our clans training we finally began training in Form 5 Shien and
Djem So. In the 4 years in the temple I had realized I would need to learn form 5 if I wanted to successfully utilize form 2 with my defensive skills. I had been getting better at using the forces signals to protect myself and had finally begun actual practice against others. Unfortunately Ahsoka was the only one in the group fast enough to threaten me as most couldn't get by my defenses even with my sight eliminated.
Things continued this way till we were all around 9-10 years old and were told we would be going through the Gathering this year. The others were extremely excited about this but I was apprehensive as I had no idea what I would face in the caves. My pat life had been pretty good until near the end. I couldn't think of anything it would test besides some minor insecurities I still had despite the strength I now had.
A little over 5 years in and the only clan member able to still hit me and even win was Ahsoka and she now struggles as I got ahold of some saber training droids and more powerful hover droids. I had also utilized all the archive access I could to obtain force abilities and knowledge. I had also learned that this was an alternate universe to the one I knew. I didn't know where it all changed it Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan had not only beaten Maul but killed him with Kenobi putting his saber through Mauls head.
The body has still fallen so they had no proof of with but he was still acknowledged as a dark side user. With his defeat Qui-Gon survived and got Obi-Wan made a knight and Anakin his padawan. While this did damage my future knowledge it also opened a path for me. As Ahsoka became Anakins padawan I wanted to become Obi-Wans padawan.
It would help me to become a powerful saber combatant as while people joked about it Obi-Wan had still beaten most with he fought and even won most of them. If I could learn under him then I was guaranteed to be able to survive. One might ask me why I want to survive so bad that I would do whatever I had to to become his apprentice, well I'd tell them that I want to prepare for the actual enemy of the republic, the Jedi, and pretty much most people in the galaxy.
I wanted to live long enough to prepare the galaxy for the Yuuhzan Vong. I hadn't read much from the Star Wars universe but I had read some comics about the desperate war against the Vong. I knew that with the force I could live a very long time and I didn't want to get through Palpatines crap then have to deal with the Vong. I would need the Jedi order to survive as most weapons were ineffective against the bio weapons and armor the Vong wields.
I also wanted to have a good life in this galaxy and I would have to deal with all that stuff if I wanted any peace. I was planning to change many things such as Anakin becoming Vader, the Death Star from being used, and keep the order alive.
I was still working on the force precognition and my combat instincts as even with Ahsoka sparring with me and many new training droids I was still behind the others. Force precognition was near the level of the weakest in our clan but my instincts were still utter garbage despite the horrid training I put myself through. The only reason I was better than the others was due to the training of defensive forms and my much better stamina. My combat form was simply to endure till the opponent made a mistake and eliminate them in an instant.
To compensate for my lack in precog and instinct I had learned many force abilities. Force speed was my best as I used it the most in combat. Force telekinesis wasn't very useful in a spar but I still trained it any time I could. Force healing was by far the hardest as I could barely heal small cuts and scrapes. Force sense was way better as well as I was what I had always used to see, now I could gain an acute sense of anything living. I had even gotten access to force enhance which allowed me to enhance my physical abilities drastically. I hadn't however used enhance as it was a padawan level power and would be to much for my young body to use without injury.
After our last meditation session of the day we were informed that we would be going to Ilum for the Gathering and that we should prepare ourselves accordingly for it. I still had no idea what my test would be or if I would even be tested. I believed I was as ready as I could be in my situation. When the next day came we were all taken to the nearly hundred meter long transport ship named the Crucible.
We were all taken to the training room to rest and prepare as the ship went into hyperspace to Ilum. On the surface our instructors gave us all cold weather gear and we pack up into land speeders. After ten high speed minutes we arrived at a large cliff with a small cave opening. Entering we found the old Jedi buildings and a small green alien near a wall of ice. We all gathered around Grand Master Yoda and gave him our greetings.
He gave a speech about the gathering and the caves as well as the importance of this trial to get our crystals. After entering the caves I quickly split from the group as I knew we would probably have to be spilt up for individual trials. Almost as soon as I lost sight of them I also lost all sight. Even with me maxing out my force sight I still couldn't see anything.
I was completely blinded as I found out what my test was. When I was first reborn I was completely blind and I hated it. In my past life I could see and the sudden darkness I was constantly surrounded by went from fear to anger and then to hate. As I had grown up I learned to see through the force and use my other senses to make sense of the galaxy I was now in.
I stumbled to the ice cold wall and began my blind trek through my test. I knew I had to face my fears and confront what I didn't want to face. I continued to look for anything within the force but I was still completely unable to make out anything but darkness. After what felt like an eternity I switched walls as my hand had gotten numb from the cold. During the next eternity in eventually stumbled and hit the ground as pain flashed in my side.
I had hit a jagged edge on the ground with my fall and I barely suppressed the tears in my non seeing eyes. I struggled to my hands and knees and searched for the wall. Where the wall should have been however was nothing but a cliff. I extended my hand as far into the unknown abyss as I could but is found no ground on either side. I knew I had to continue on so I went back to crawling with my hands outstretched sweeping the ground ahead of me.
This time I went for what felt like days upon days as I crawled into the eternal darkness till I actually saw something.