Jedi Master Yoda watched the young girl and took in her features as she slept. She was around 13 standard years old, much older than Vader had been when he had come to the temple for training. She had anger, fear, and jealousy in spades though she tried to hide it behind a false wall of curiosity.
“Can you teach me?” Those words echoed through his mind and he wondered why he even agreed to teach her in the first place.
“She is too old” he had told himself as he paced the room delaying his answers to her many questions “Too angry and fearful,” but when he turned to reprimand her for these exact flaws, just as he had let the Jedi Council do to Darth Vader when Qui-Gon had brought the boy before them, he had to pause and keep himself from gaping at the young girl.
Strong force sensitives could see things others could not, this was a known fact. When he had told the council that the force was clouded on Coruscant he had meant it. Looking at anyone and trying to read them through the force was like reading a data pad without glasses, everything was fogged and clouded.
Here on Dagobah away from Palpatine's influence, he could finally see clearly and what he saw from Sunset Shimmer amazed him. At first glance, the child gave off the emotions he had originally condemned her for. Anger, fear, and jealousy, but then on a whim, he looked deeper using the Force to guide him to the hidden truths that the child held beneath. Something he now wished he had done with Vader all those years ago.
What he found astonished him, her strength in the force was immense, nowhere near as strong as Vader’s had been at her age, or as strong as the Skywalker Twins, but all the same, it was strong and while it was touched by the dark side it was not yet fully tainted, it even seemed as if that darkness was being cleansed, something that he had thought was unprecedented.
She shone like a beacon and while Dagobah hid her just as it did him, her raw power was causing the world’s presence so much strain. While Yoda could exist as a sole light within the darkness that was Dagobah and fade into the background, Sunset Shimmer refused to, her presence burned bright and pushed constantly against the shelter that Dagobah provided as if her very essence was offended by the darkness around her.
This wasn’t what cemented Yoda’s decision to train her though, what had done that was the presence that outlined Sunset’s very being. Around the child’s heart, he could see the roots of a crystal tree, its roots cradling the sun that was Sunset’s soul, nurturing her and keeping the darkness away.
At that moment the old Grandmaster knew, that the force had brought her to him, while she may not be the one that would eventually bring balance, she brought him something that he hadn’t felt in his heart since the birth of the twins those three fateful years.
She brought him, Hope.
3 Weeks Later
Sunset Shimmer was frustrated and failing miserably at hiding it. Her new Master, Yoda, was a taskmaster, with a Doctorate in slave-driving. Every day for the past week, he had forced her to do the most asinine things to have her focus on the Force and its flow.
She was drinking some water after what she assumed was a mile run with Yoda on her back. He told her that the force required not only a healthy mind but also body, and that exercise of the body could sometimes promote deeper reflection into the Force.
Before, more specifically the day after she had just arrived, she had face-planted multiple times into the muck of the swamp, still not used to running on two legs instead of four. Yoda just shook his head and told her to get up and continue at her own pace, and not to rush.
Now nearly 3 weeks later she was leaping over fallen trees and ignoring the mud in her shoes like a professional runner. If Yoda was surprised by her progress he didn’t bring it up.
He was currently letting her rest, so she used that time to think about all that she had learned in the week that she had been stuck on the swamp world she now called home.
From what she understood, the world she was on, Dagobah, Yoda told her, was a planet in what was collectively known as the Outer Rim Territories of the Galaxy. Yoda chose to live on this remote world because of its connection to the Force, specifically the Dark Side so that he could use that connection to hide from what he called “The Galactic Empire.”
Yoda had been in exile for nearly 3 years, alone in his vigil until Sunset was dropped on his metaphorical doorstep. 'Maybe that’s why he decided to train me,’ Sunset thought 'He was lonely.’
She stood up and continued her run, Yoda not speaking a word on her back as she did so. She thought about what he had taught her and tried to piece together why he would even bother training her.
He had recited the Jedi Code to her, had told her the original requirements to become a Jedi and she only met one, according to him she had a strong connection to the Force, but otherwise, that was it. She was angry, impulsive, and according to what Yoda had said during one of their conversations, too old.
Jedi were trained from as close to birth as possible. According to Yoda, they were given to the order by their parents once it was found that they were Force-sensitive. This was, from what she understood, to keep “attachments” from forming that could lead to the dark side.
Sunset had mixed feelings about that. On the one hoof, from what she understood, the Jedi were great scholars and warriors, something that she could respect, especially since some ponies back home such as Star Swirl the Bearded were the same, excellent warriors and scholars. On the other hoof, training from fillyhood and preventing attachments felt...wrong to Sunset.
Training from foalhood was fine, she was taken in as a filly after all by Celestia and she wasn’t one to form needless attachments, but even she knew that at least Equestrians were a social species and needed attachments, it’s why most ponies in Equestria no matter the race, had tightly knit family structures.
Then there was the Jedi Code, and that brought up a whole new can of worms for Sunset.
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.
Sunset didn’t like the Code, she wouldn’t go so far as to say she hated it, but she greatly disliked it. She wasn’t going to bash on a code that according to her Master a thousand generations had followed, but to Sunset, the Jedi Code felt empty. Yes, it talked about serving the Force, and yes it talked about peace, harmony and so on but at the same time, it made no mention of protecting the innocent, of helping those that couldn’t help themselves, and other things Yoda had claimed the Jedi of old did.
Sunset Shimmer would be the first pony to admit that she had her own agenda and looked out for herself first, but she still found it fishy that an order that was known for “defending the weak” and “protecting the republic” had none of these things at the forefront of their creed.
On a less serious note though, Sunset had learned a lot in the three weeks that she had been stuck on Dagobah. Yoda hadn’t just been teaching her how to sense the Force or be a Jedi.
He was surprised that she already knew the Galaxy's language instinctively, but chalked that to the strange way she arrived. He taught her about the Galactic currency, how the Old Republic’s government worked, Galactic history, and anything else he thought she might need.
Finishing her run near Yoda’s hut and setting the small troll down she sat down on the dry patch of land that Yoda maintained around his home and waited for the next lesson to start.
Many light years away from where Sunset Shimmer was training in the Jedi Arts, Darth Vader marched towards the center of the Imperial Palace.
He had been recalled from his current mission of hunting down the remnants of the now-defunct Jedi order for reasons he had yet to understand. His Master, Darth Sidious, had just told him to arrive at Imperial Center, the new name for Coruscant that Vader personally detested, and be timely about it.
So Vader had to put his mission on hold for the whims of his master, and he rushed to the galactic core to see what Sidious had planned for his apprentice.
Pausing at the large double doors he waited for the Imperial guards to admit him, not wishing to upset his master by barging in unannounced.
The guards looked at the Sith Apprentice and opened the door, not bowing to him nor showing him the proper respect he deserved and Vader ignored them, making his way to the throne.
“Ahh, Lord Vader, on time as always!” His master crowed from atop his obsidian throne as Vader came to a stop and knelt before him.
“What is thy bidding, my master?” Vader’s low timber echoed through the empty throne room followed closely by the deep rasp of his respirator.
Palpatine smirked at his apprentice and stood “Raise your head Lord Vader, we have much to discuss,” with that the Emperor of the Galaxy stood and walked down the stairs of his throne to his rising apprentice. “It seems, there have been many a disturbance in the Force lately my apprentice, have you felt them?” He questioned his apprentice, as they slowly began to walk out of the throne room.
“No, Master, I have not.” The last time Darth Vader had felt a disturbance in the Force was three years ago, when his wife was pregnant... when he sold his soul, since then he had felt nothing of the sort, just cold and angry.
“Hmm, It is probably because of you're still recovering skill in the force, after all, Obi-Wan did do some damage to you on Mustafar.” Palpatine mocked, egging his student and hoping to get a reaction out of him, but Vader was used to these pokes at his failure and remained silent.
“That is in the past.” Palpatine continued “It would seem that the Outer Rim is just rife with disturbances, I have sent out the Inquisitors to...find the first of the disturbances, a small fluctuation in Dark Side energy, probably just a new Force Nexus but we can never be too careful after all.”
Vader looked to his master “And what of me, Master?” he asked “Why call me out here to tell me something that you could have relayed over holo communications?”
“Ah, yes, the second disturbance,” Palpatine shivered and Vader knew the reaction was fake and only put on for the soldiers and staff wandering the palace “It would seem that a recently colonized world in the Outer Rim has been experiencing many unforeseen complications.”
The Emperor handed his apprentice a data slate and continued “The colonists, all Human mind you, and non-Force sensitive, have been reporting back odd findings, missing gaps in memory, and odd fluctuation in mood.”
Vader looked from the slate to his master. “You believe this to be a Jedi?” his rage began to bubble to the surface at the thought that yet another of the Light side's servants had escaped from him.
Palpatine smiled “Your rage is well placed Lord Vader,” He clasped his hands in front of himself and continued “Yes, I believe this to be the work of a Jedi, and a sloppy one at that, go to this unnamed world and remove the Jedi by any means necessary if they can be integrated all the better but kill them if you cannot capture them.”
Darth Vader bowed slightly and rumbled a stiff as you wish. After this dismissal he made his way back to his shuttle, to begin hunting down his newest quarry.