Lost in the Echo - 10.040 (Wei)

[Kyle Krogen]

Ossus. A new planet, a new beginning. It had everything needed to support life and with it came hidden knowledge and the opportunity to grow, bond, and thrive. The ancient home of the Jedi was everything he had ever hoped to find. A place where they belonged. No more running, no more hiding. Already a new life had been started. A ship landed, living spaces established, and new discoveries, new knowledge, happen on a daily basis within the ancient library.

So why was it that he could not sleep at night, and could not stand being around other people. Already he had secluded himself, choosing to watch the happenings from the safety of his hill just outside of camp. To a man who had lost everything a blanket was the coziest, warmest bed. His own clothing was a mix of pieces of his prison jumpsuit mixed with whatever fragments of clothing he had managed to scavenge. He had tried his very best to not be a burden on his fellow Jedi, and had done his best to stay out of their way. Weeks curled up in a corner had followed his rescue from his several years in custody, and he was determined to not show that weakness again.

While the other Jedi delved and grew, Kyle was not entirely unproductive. He spent his days alone, on top of his hill. His lightsabre had been recovered from the Inquisition during the raid that rescued him, and with it he practiced almost forgotten techniques passed down to him from his Master so many years ago on Coruscant. His muscles were weak and hardly remembered the delicate motions. His hands moved hard, fast; chopping instead of slicing. He had no grace left. All he had left was anger and a growing desire to see his captors driven before him. He had nothing left.

They held him for years, torturing him. Breaking him. They gave no reasons, no explanations. They just woke him up every day, pushed him down the same corridor to be pricked and poked and then tied to the ceiling and beaten until his entire body ached. Then they patched him up, made him good as new. Whispered sweet nothings in his ear; propaganda, backhanded compliments. Lies. Then into the anechoic chamber where no sound could exist. They would lock him in there until he could hear his own heart beating, the blood rushing through his ears, and finally the very sound of his sanity cracking. Rinse. Repeat. For years.

Just thinking about it made him more angry, causing his sabre motions to become brutal and decisive. The purple blade hummed and sputtered, leaves falling from the nearby trees turning to smoke as they fell into the beam. His blond hair was long and untrimmed, his face a mess of stubble. Personal grooming was something he had not even put a thought to in so many years. The Inquisitors used to take him out and shave his head and face when it grew too long for their standards. Months in the Wheel saw it regrow to the point that it sat in his eyes for the first time in years.

Frustration at his poor form only made his mood worse, and his routine became sloppy as he frequently lost his footing or poorly executed a maneuver he knew he could do better. With a growl of frustration he deactived the energy weapon and tossed it away from himself, letting it skip across the ground until it came to a rest in the grass.

[Wei Wu Wei]

The lightsaber hilt rolled in the grass until it rested against the toe of Wei Wu Wei. Busy though he had been, he couldn't help but notice the lone Jedi on a small hilltop looking into the camp, or practicing all alone.

For the past several weeks Wei wondered how best to approach Kyle. It was evidently clear that something was wrong. Fear and insecurity rolled off Kyle in waves. Even without being connected to the Force, Wei could see how scared he was of...well...everyone.

At last, Wei decided to reach out to Kyle with the only thing the Force Cripple knew: lightsabers.

The Jedi Knight caught the pommel of the saber with the top of his foot. A quick flicking motion sent the hilt spinning up to eye level. He caught it in his hand and walked up to Kyle.

"I saw you training and wondered if you'd like company. I guess I got here too late. Seems you're finished for the day."

Wei offered Kyle his lightsaber--focusing lens pointed away and towards the outside of their bodies. "Trying to be a Jedi again can be difficult, isn't it?"

Wei offered a knowing smile. Becoming a Jedi again had been hard on Wei, though not half so hard as the time he spent before being a drunk. The things that hurt and haunted him still left him feeling bruised when he thought of them, but each day he spent working shoulder to shoulder with the new Order made the bruise hurt less.

[Kyle Krogen]

Reaching out his fingers found the curve of the handle and slowly, reluctantly, over and under it. Pulling it back to himself he cradled it in his hands like the most delicate of relics. It was a simple design; a silver handle with a gold plate and black grip. The gold had long ago faded and tarnished and the grip had been replaced several times with different materials. It had belonged to his master. The very sight of it was a sore reminder of just how far he had fallen.

It also offered memories of a time out of place. Back when he was just a child; raised on the streets, fighting to survive. He ran from a scrape, down into the pits of Coruscant and there he found him. The Gray Man. He took a vagabond child and gave him something he never had; hope and honor. This sabre had been their connection. The days they had taken turns with it. Him instructing by example before handing it to Kyle to emulate. Together they grew. The Gray Man had a friend in the aftermath of the Purge and Kyle learned to be a man.

It had been his attempt to spread that profound sense of freedom and morality that alerted the Inquisition and for all his honesty and honor he was thrown into a prison of darkness to rot for years upon end. He would still be there, in a cell. His nightmare would have only gotten worse if he was not rescued from that ship. They were taking him to the Maw, and he had feared what waited for him there.

It felt wrong in his hands. Hands that were blistered and cracked from holding a lightsabre for the first time in years. Callouses had gone soft and his muscles weak, and now they struggled to fit a routine that had once come naturally. His whole body ached from sleeping outdoors, malnutrition, and catching what little he did eat with his own hands because it felt wrong to use the force to break the necks of little critters.

"Adjusting to sunlight after living without it for three years was hard. Living outside of a cell was hard." Kyle said, turning the lightsabre over and over in his hand. It seemed so small and delicate. Hardly the weapon of a man who just wanted to beat everything to death just to release some of the rage he felt inside. "Becoming a Jedi has been impossible..."

[Wei Wu Wei]

"Ah, but you see, it's not impossible at all if you think about it."

Wei sat in the grass and invited Kyle to sit by him with a gesture.

"People think finding balance is hard. That it takes will, struggle, and effort to achieve. Balance for some people is like a wild bantha that has to be hunted, cornered and wrestled to the ground. Balance isn't hard to grasp: it's letting go of what unbalances us that's the real struggle."

Wei took a breath. "Do you know the Jedi Code?"

[Kyle Krogen]

At the mention of the code Kyle was transported back through time to Coruscant again as the Gray Man looked down at him with those tired eyes and told him to recite it again. The Jedi Code. Once upon a time he had held the idea of balance as the most important aspect of life and had applied it to everything he did. For every life he took he planted a tree, for everything he had stolen he gave equally away. It had given him a peace of mind. Serenity. Balance had been the strongest pinnacle of his life and had motivated him more than anything else. In a galaxy so dark he saw nothing but opportunities to tip the scale back toward the light.

"There is no emotion, there is peace. There is no ignorance, there is knowledge. There is no passion, there is serenity. There is no chaos, there is harmony. There is no death, there is the Force."

The words exited his mouth without much thinking. The practiced memory was shaken clean of dust and shone like a beacon in his mind. The code had been little comfort in his darkest of days, and now it felt strange to say it. When offered the seat he almost remained standing, but all his rage and frustration had bled away and now he just felt exhausted. Taking a seat in the grass across from the man, Wei he believed his name was, Kyle picked at blade of grass until it came free between his fingers.

"How can I find that balance again? I can still hear their voices in my head, and every night I go back to that cell."

[Wei Wu Wei]

Wei thought about it a while. He knew how he found balance. An adventure to find the truth about his family and more hours than he could count practicing lightsaber forms helped him let go. But would it be so simple with Kyle?

"Well," he said at last, "I do know that any advice I give you will sound completely simplistic. Scars that run deep take a long time to heal. But I will say this: don't try to run from your feelings. The things you feel are natural, and need to be dealt with. Just remember where you are here and now. When you hear those voices or imagine that cell, know you're not there anymore. Those people can't hurt you anymore. Perhaps just bearing that in mind will help you find the balance you need."

Wei cast his gaze about the landscape, feeling lame and hoping what he said was helpful. Wei had a big problem with canned answers and half-hearted platitudes: he'd gotten more than his fair share after the death of his family.

[Kyle Krogen]

Reaching up Kyle rubbed his closed eyelids softly, kneading them as he listening to Wei speak. It was simple. So simple. He knew that, but it was where the simplicity lead that kept him awake at night with a cold sweat dripping down his back. Pulling his hand away, he looked past Wei down the hill to the camp below. Everyone was working, doing something. All had a purpose, a calling. He knew his, but it wasn't very Jedi-like.

"No. They can't hurt me anymore, but what about everyone else?. My feelings tell me to find those sick bastards and make sure they can never do that to another soul. No one should have to go through what they did to me. The hole they kept me in had enough cells to hold an army. I felt them, all of them, as their souls cried out in anguish. The Inquisition deserves nothing less than hell."

[Wei Wu Wei]

Wei nodded. "I'm already working on resisting them and, eventually, overcoming them."

The Force Cripple wasn't sure what else to say. Then he remembered why he was there in the first place. "The last I will say on that is this: one day they will fall. Maybe not today, and maybe not tomorrow. But they are a source of imbalance in the galaxy, and they will be put to rights. In the meantime, I think it's more important to get ourselves established. Without the proper preparation, we won't be able to stand against them at all, much less put them out of business."

Wei stood and offered his hand to Kyle to help him up. "I've seen you practicing out here. If you like, we can practice together. Lightsaber combat is more or less all I do. I think I can lend out a hand if you're interested."

[Kyle Krogen]

"I haven't even used a lightsabre in years, much less fought with one..." Kyle replied as he weakly raised the deactivated weapon, spinning it idly between his fingers as muscles found old nervous habits. Letting out a sigh he agreed with a nod of his head and stood up, stretching his arms with a rotation and cracking his neck to the side. The tension he felt subsided as his limbs loosened.

Old senses long forgotten tried to emerge. Something about environments, surroundings. Oh yes, he remembered that he had always used his environment to his advantage. A hill with a scraggly tree was not exactly something to be used to his advantage. It only served to make him feel naked and exposed against a man he very much bet was the far better swordsman. Kyle had been great, once upon a time. That was a long time ago. Now he just felt old.

"If you want to kick a man while he's down, then by all means." And with that his sabre actived into a brilliant amethyst beam and his body fell into what he thought he remembered a defensive posture being; legs apart, offset, and his blade held at the head in front of him. Everything felt old and new at the same time.

[Wei Wu Wei]

Wei shook his head. "No, that's not what I meant. I've watched you practice alone for a few days now, and I don't think a sparring match is going to help. I was thinking more about drilling techniques and doing some strength training. We won't do any sparring again until you're more confident in your skills."

Wei stood alongside Kyle. "Not bad for an opening stance. Your body remembers more than you think. Muscle memory is a wonderful thing, and we're going to use it to our advantage. Which lightsaber form did you practice most before your imprisonment?"

[Kyle Krogen]

His blade lowered until it pointed toward the ground. Kyle had to admit he was a little bit disappointed. As much as he knew he would lose a duel against just about any other Jedi, he was also hoping for the blood rushing high and a outlet for his emotional turmoil. All this seething rage needed release. Wei's reasons, though, were understandable.

"Ataru," Kyle replied as he adjusted his position as Wei moved alongside. "With an emphasis on the Sokan principle." an emphasis on using the environment to your advantage. On his native Coruscant there was always wasted space in the sub-levels; broken down turbolifts, or entire levels in disrepair littered with debris. His master had taught him how to survive in an urban environment. Fast, hard attacks using every advantage available. Kyle hardly thought himself capable of the necessary somersaults, flips, and dives that defined Ataru.

[Wei Wu Wei]

Wei nodded. "That's a good discipline, and takes a great deal of energy to perform well. Why don't we start with the basics? Go over stances and basic footwork. We'll do the really high-energy stuff later."

He smiled and took the opening stance: feet shoulder width apart, but with the left leg leading. He put a good deal of his weight on the leading leg: Ataru was the Aggression Form and the weight distribution made it easier to lunge forward. He held the saber in both hands with the hilt at shoulder-level. The blade pointed at the sky.

"Like I said, you probably are at a higher skill level than you realize: it's just that your body is weakened from your imprisonment. Let's just sharpen technique for now, and we'll work on building up the power Ataru requires as we go. It'll be easy: slow to flow, then flow to fast. You'll be back to normal in no time."

Wei pivoted on his front foot and cut horizontally. He stopped the motion when his right foot faced forward in a sort of reflection of his opening stance. "Take it slow, and focus on the footwork for the moment."

[Kyle Krogen]

Kyle proved more than capable of imitating Wei's posture, although his attitude was much harder to copy. Every part of him wanted to crawl under a rock and die, or shoot back into space for revenge. Because those were the emotions the Empire grilled into him, and those were the only things he had for so very long. The truth that he had only two options: fight or die.

As he pivoted like Wei and swung his blade it felt very familiar, but the voice and the teaching was different. Where Wei underlined the importance of footwork he remembered his own master focusing on the purity of thought and intention. That as a clean slate any action; passive or aggressive, could be just so long as you were pure in your intention. Neutrality, a cosmic balance, these had been the center of his lessons. When the Empire took that balance away and fill him with darkness he didn't think he would ever "dance" again.

"It feels wrong, I feel like I'm doing it wrong..." Kyle murmured, the frustration obvious in his voice. Giving up was just so much easier.

[Wei Wu Wei]

Wei stopped and looked over at Kyle. "I'll watch you do it and we'll see."

Wei wondered if his Form IV might vary in some way from what Kyle was taught. Of course, after being imprisoned for so long, it could be that he couldn't quite remember what the motions were like. More than likely, Kyle's mind was distracted. Wei knew how a sour feeling could infect anything you were doing and make it seem all wrong.

"Do it again."

[Kyle Krogen]

Kyle repeated the motion, just as he had just done, and when he finished he once again had the feeling that it was wrong. Not that the technique was wrong, but that he was wrong to be using it. The lightsabre felt like too elegant a weapon, too light, for all the crushing and smashing his heart wanted to commit.

Repeating it again, and again, he drilled the maneuver and it became easier and he felt less guilty for doing it, but there was still a weight on his shoulders, threatening to push him into the very hill he stood on. It became easier, and old techniques remembered by rusty muscles surfaced in flourishes and foot pivots that went beyond the simplicity of the maneuver.

Already the muscles in his thighs and shoulders were burning.

[Wei Wu Wei]

"Looks good!" Wei said. "We'll have to practice some other techniques and footwork later. Tumbling as well. The spinning and somersaulting maneuvers in Ataru work best when you can land on your feet." He chuckled at little at himself as he said it.

"You want to keep going? Don't feel bad if you want to take a break. Until you can rebuild your strength and stamina, you don't want to push yourself too hard. It wouldn't do to injure yourself in training."

Kyle was sharpening up well. He felt confident that Kyle could reach his old level of skill with a little practice and strength training. Wei was convinced the training was still there. They just needed to prime the water pump, so to speak, and it would all come rushing up to the surface.

"I believe you'll be back to your previous best in no time."

[Kyle Krogen]

"No, I can't stop now, or I'll give up." He replied, firmly in tone. Procrastination was a slave master, and like a Monkey Lizard on his back it kept tapping him on the shoulder, telling him he could stop and try again tomorrow, and the day after that, and the next day forever until someone like Wei happened by again to give him the kick in the pants he needed.

No. This was something he had to do. The burn and the strain was a good feeling, standing juxtaposed to the cramped quarters he inhabited for years in prison where movement was restrained. His body weakened, muscles atrophied. If not for the daily walk to his various chambers of torture he would have gotten no exercise at all in that place. Now he had wide open fields with as much room as he could possibly ask for, but he was still living in a cage, choking on the claustrophobia and darkness of his mind.

Stopping, he crouched down and stood up, stretching his leg muscles a few times before planting his feet and pushing off, leaving the dirt behind as his entire body went airborne, rotating backwards, but also shoulder to hip, pulling him around in the air. Time sort of slowed down, and he felt like the moment of weightlessness stretched on for an eternity as the weight of the ground fell away and he found solace in the air. Finally he came back down, landing opposite of the way he had jumped, having flipped and twisted his entire body around. It'd been some time since he had left the ground under his own power.

"Thanks Wei." He said, at last, finally turning back around to face the Jedi. "I'd forgotten how it feels to move."

[Wei Wu Wei]

"You're welcome." Wei smiled. The Force Cripple shut off his lightsaber and motioned back towards the grounds. "Let's get some food. Solid nutrition will definitely be a big advantage. Meals happen pretty much any time, so there's bound to be something we can eat." He pointed at Kyle's clothes. "It might also do to get you some fresh clothes. We can do all that and be ready to go again inside of an hour. Won't take long."

[Kyle Krogen]

Kyle's eyes turned to look down at the encampment below, and the hesitation was clear on his face. Even from here he could see the rustle and bustle of people going about their day; building the camp or training, or just walking around enjoying the beautiful scenery. For all it's beauty being out in the free air only made him miss the familiar of his gunmetal gray cell; completely alone except for the Inquisitors that would drag him from that cell and into the bright lights and pain. "I don't... I don't feel like I belong around other people, around real people." That was what they said, when they were applying the thumbscrews and beating him while he hung from the ceiling. He was not real, his ideals were an illusion. They tried everything in their power to tear down who and what he was. To some success.

[Wei Wu Wei]

"Don't belong?"

The question wasn't meant to be answered. Wei looked at Kyle and smiled. "Of course you belong! You're a Jedi! You never stopped being one, even when the Inquisition had you. The reality is, you're home. We don't have to talk to anyone about what happened, or let them know about your anxiety or feelings. We just sit. You don't even have to talk. Just be there. We'll even work out a signal. Something small and innocuous that will let me know when you're getting too uncomfortable. Minute I see it, I'll excuse us and we'll come right back here for more Ataru training."

Wei held out his hand. "Deal?"