Of Love and War: Us Against the World

Fight Me

AN: I'm sorry ahead of time—this one has a lot of POV switching. But its essential to this piece. Just know when there's a line break, its jumping back to the other setting. At least I'm only jumping between two events, that way its not terribly confusing. Scenes like this would be much easier to do in video format *sigh*

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(24 BBY, Five Years Before the Rise of the Empire)

"Arg—watch it! If this was real, you could have taken my arm off!"

"Calm down, Ani, you know me better than that—I know what I'm doing, I'm not gonna hurt you!"

"If that leaves a burn, then I'll have evidence that says otherwise!"

Zelina chuckled, lazily twirling her lightsaber in hand as they both settled back into at-the-ready positions. Anakin was still scowling at her, but the fact that they hadn't finished their spar made him table his disgruntlement in favor on focusing on winning the match. He wasn't about to let her beat him, not today, anyway.

She shifted her feet, coiling slightly before she rushed Anakin once again, attempting to use one of the Djem So moves Master Du had taught her recently to catch him off guard and swiftly end the fight in her favor. To her dismay, Anakin easily sidestepped her, and the next moment she found her feet had disappeared underneath her as the world flipped upside-down.

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(15 BBY, fifteen years after the rise of the Empire)

Luke hit the ground with an audible thud, a soft grunt escaping him as his mother knocked him to the ground yet again in their training session. The woman had no sense of the term "go easy on them," but at least it meant when he made progress, it was real, earned progress that showed how much he was growing.

Of course, he couldn't care less about all of that as he was getting repeatedly knocked into the dirt.

"It's admirable that you want to fight honorably, Luke, it is—a Jedi should fight honorably," Zelina was saying, standing over the still prone Luke lying on the sandy ground. "But you also need to be aware that not everyone is going to fight within your standards of fair and honorable, and you need to be ready for that. Honorable fighting alone isn't going to do you much good against someone fighting dirty. Once they're no longer fighting fair, you're not held to those honorable standings either. Or at least, you should use your head and try to out-think them."

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"You're going to have to use that head of yours and get creative if you want to beat me, Zee," Anakin said with a smirk, staring down at a rather disgruntled Zelina before he offered her a hand.

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"Let's try it again," Zelina told Luke, pulling the young Skywalker to his feet. "From the top, all right?"

Luke brushed some of the sand off of himself, even if it was a futile gesture, taking up his position a few paces away from Zelina once again. He let out a slow huff, lifting his father's lightsaber in front of him with both hands, the blue blade snapping back to life. His mother remained perfectly relaxed across from him, waiting to see what he would do.

She wasn't going to fight fair, that much was clear, now. So he was going to have to try and out-think his mother.

Well, this is going to be easy, Luke thought sarcastically.

Deciding he'd held his position long enough, Luke stepped forward, lightsaber already twitching towards a block, as his mother's reaction to the advance was to come in for an offensive attack.