On the Wings of Valkyrie

Chapter CXLIV

Luke should have known the moment he'd seen that twinkle in Luna's eye when she suggested sparring that she had something up her sleeve. Unfortunately between his own not fully awake state and her otherwise exhausted looking body language that the young Jedi was starting to think he'd imagined, he had brushed it off.

Wrong move, Skywalker. Wrong move.

"So basically the rules are no rules?" Luke asked, trying not to sound worried.

"Can't leave the room—we can't let any member of the crew see us for obvious reasons—and no serious maiming—don't want your parents to kill me—but besides that, yes," Luna stated, her tone friendly enough despite the fact those rules gave her full permission to electrocute him to death. Not that Luke thought she'd electrocute him to death, but he'd seen the girl use lighting before and had never desired to be on the receiving end of one of those blasts.

"Why don't we just spar like normal? Blades and general physical Force enhancements?" he questioned, attempting to sound just as lighthearted about the matter even as he silently prayed for her to agree. The Jedi had not been planning to practice all out dueling with her, nor did he particularly want to. Between the girl and Vader, she was far more nimble, and in doing so was a lot more deadly and harder to handle. Not that the Sith Lord wasn't deadly, just that there were reasons Eclipse had less massacres to her name but was just as feared.

Besides, she'd beaten Anakin in a regular old spar. Luke hadn't managed that with the Jedi or the Sith vision of his Father and thus couldn't even imagine being capable of defeating her.

"Luke," Luna began, her voice becoming deadly serious, "this is possibly going to be your only chance to fight with everything you've got against an opponent more capable than Palpatine's Hands before you face the Emperor. Vader will never give you this, he will keep things within certain limits. Even when the Force is allowed, telekinesis will be the basic limit when it comes to sparring. If you want even an inkling of what to expect when facing Palpatine, you need to know more than that if only to have an idea of how to defend yourself. Vader has not seen the Emperor truly fight; I have.... Besides, aren't you the least bit curious of who's the best between the two of us?"

No! The answer is you, obviously, Luke thought to himself though he didn't answer Luna aloud. She had a point after all. The only Sith the Jedi had ever really fought was his Father, and Vader had never been actively trying to kill him. The only time the Force had ever truly entered the playing field was when Luke had been dueling Vader on Bespin, and that had gone rather poorly. The Rebel Pilot simply didn't have much experience when it came to anything besides the more physical Force given enhancements during a fight: speed, agility, strength, Double Visions, etc.. All helpful, but certainly not all the Force could be used for in a duel. A Jedi used the Force for defense only after all, never attack, but how could Luke defend against something without any practice? Hadn't gone well on Bespin, that was for certain.

Yoda hadn't really helped the young Jedi learn more ways to apply the Force to a duel. Vader had done a lot more relating to such teachings (a Sith sees the Force as a tool, and while Luke didn't agree with the viewpoint, it had allowed his Father to be more creative). But even with Vader, while the Jedi learner had certainly expanded his ideas of how the Force may aid him in numerous ways, they hadn't actively inserted it into a duel besides improving on the deflection of general things.

For instance, Luke could say with confidence that if needed, he could deflect blaster fire with his bare hands. Not a trick he planned on using any time soon, but one he was happy to have. However, that's what most of the stuff was really, tricks to get you a second or more of time to get out of a tight situation. There was more Vader could have taught him of course, but any further than that (as far as the boy could tell) would have been much more Sith related and Luke had point blank refused. Everything else was more or less theory based from the books in Vader's library. The young Jedi had practiced and experimented with what he could and his Father was helpful in answering questions, but it wasn't like he'd tried any of it. When fighting the Emperor's Hands, Luke had a tendency to fall back on what he knew worked, not about to risk being distracted by the implementation of something new that may end up being both a waste of time and energy. And it wasn't like he could practice that sort of stuff with Leia.