An Exile's Journey

by Palibakufun

Chapter 3

Twilight’s brain was aching as she concentrated as hard as she ever had before on a small datapad in front of her. Kaleb sat to the side, hovering above the ground, watching her intently. It took all of Twilight’s willpower to not use her magic to levitate the datapad, but rather the Force inside of her.

“Now, it might be a few weeks before you start to see progress with this. The Jedi order usually only teaches kids, because their minds are open and easy to feed information. But the older you are, the harder it is. Some people take years to finish their Jedi training, so there’s no need to rush.”

Twilight barely heard him speak. She could feel the Force inside of herself, flowing throughout her body. It felt different than her magic did. She focused on taking hold of that energy within her and channeling it. Finally she felt it start working, and she focused on the datapad, and it started to tremble, before rising up off the floor of the ship. She didn’t let the excitement distract her, though, and she kept it up until it floated in front of her face. She carefully span the datapad around a few times before setting it down on the ground.

“Very good! It almost looks like you know what you’re doing completely.”

“This isn’t too different from my magic, really. It’s just with my magic, I have to form all of the equations in my mind and focus the magic to a point in my horn. This requires a different sort of focus, where you allow the Force to just flow from you and into the object that you want to manipulate.”

“Exactly, so you do get the concept just fine. This is going to make you really easy to train. Can you do two?”

“I don’t know; let’s see.” Kaleb sat a second datapad in front of her. She concentrated on both of this this time, and allowed the force to flow through her body and to the datapads. Now that she was used to the feeling, she knew exactly what to do, and the datapads floated into the air. She smiled, and looked over to where Kaleb was floating. She took hold of the three other datapads and hovered them over in front of her.

“I… I’m very impressed.” He said with a dumbfounded look on his face. “I knew you’d be pretty good at this, but this is just crazy.”

“I’m just getting warmed up.” Slowly, she focused on herself as well as the datapads, and she hovered into the air, much like Kaleb. “Let’s see if I can use my magic at the same time.” Her horn flared purple, and a chair from across the room lit up. She focused her magic with all her might, but could not make the chair lift into the air.

“Oh wow…” She let the datapads and herself back down to the ground. “I can’t even lift that chair over there. Normally, I could probably steer this whole ship around if I felt the need with ease. I guess I’m going to have to rely a lot more on the force in this world than my own magic.”

“Maybe if you practice your magic without the aid of a magic filled world, it’ll build your own strength up.”

“Yeah, you’re right. If I can get back to the level I was at before in this world, just thing what I could do when I go back home?! I could become the most powerful unicorn to ever exist! This is so exciting!”

“Calm down now. I don’t want to start training you if you’re going to start doing this for power.”

Twilight’s face darkened when she heard him say that. “Oh no no! You don’t understand, I didn’t mean it like that. I promise, I’ve dealt with a lot of evil back in my own world. I’m actually one of its protectors.“

“I thought your world had little crime and no wars?”

“Well, it does. But, you see, there are a lot of evil creatures that would love nothing more than to take over our peaceful kingdom. I promise that no matter what, you can trust me.”

“I’ve heard that so many times throughout my life I couldn’t even tell you, Twilight. The dark side is so hard to resist, and I don’t think you understand. Because you have such a strong command of the Force already, if we run into any Sith, they’re going to want to recruit you. Bad. The lure of the dark side is stronger than you can imagine…”

“You sound like you’re talking from experience, Kaleb.”

Kaleb sighed and held his head down, rubbing his temples with his thumbs. “This is another topic I’d rather not discuss right now. Just know that for now, I will train you. But if you ever start slipping, I will try to stop you in any way I need to.”

Twilight recoiled at the coldness that Kaleb’s statement held. Would he really kill her that quickly? She trusted herself to never get to that point, but still. He did say that killing was a last resort, though. “I… I don’t…”

After realizing how harsh he had sounded, he sighed once more. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean for that to sound so harsh. As it currently stands, you seem to me like one of the nicest creatures I’ve ever met. You end evil in your world without killing. Hell, you might even be a better Jedi than I! Who knows?...” He stood up and walked over to the entrance of the port dorm that they had been practicing in.

“I need to take a break for a bit. Just… feel free to practice. There’s nothing else much to do. Oh, and those five datapads are the ones over hyperspace and holograms and whatnot. I’ll be in the cockpit if you need me.” He quickly retreated before Twilight had a chance to say anything. She could tell that he had wounds that weren’t quite healed yet. She closed her eyes and tried to reach out with the Force to him. Now that she understood how to really channel the force, she was finally able to brush his conscience. She didn’t feel anything though; it was closed off. He probably was trained to not allow anyone into his mind, she assumed.

While Kaleb’s grief worried her, she decided to let him simmer down while she practiced more. Instead of working on her Force abilities, she started to train her magic. The magic in her horn flared and she tried to lift one of the datapads with it. Just like before, she greatly struggled to even manage to budge it. After a lot of effort, it slowly wobbled to life and shakily rose into the air. She wasn’t able to hold it, though, and it dropped back down with a loud clank.

“This is so weird… This is the simplest thing that any unicorn can do, but I’m struggling so much with this…” She looked inside herself for the answer. Normally when she cast spells, her body naturally drew magic from the world around her. In this world, there was none, so her body was having to draw upon her own stores, which were very small. Did all unicorns have such small stores of magic in them? Was this even something she could train?

She engulfed the datapad in her aura again. This time, she focused more on using her magic efficiently, rather than throwing it all at the datapad. To her surprise, this time it seemed a lot easier to raise the datapad into the air. She was able to hold it there for half a minute before her magic waned on her. She was going to have to learn how to control her magic with more efficiency than ever before if she wanted to remain a unicorn.

After she was done training for a while, she decided to try and get some reading done. She resolved to pick a bed in the port dorms, since she was already there, and laid down to read. The beds were surprisingly comfortable, and they made for great reading places.

In the cockpit, Kaleb was thinking about his slip in emotion. Why was so hostile towards her? He guessed it was because of himself; he thought the exact same thing not a few years ago. ‘I’m easily strong enough to resist the pull of the darkside.’ But in the battlefields that he fought the Mandolorians on, he fell so far… Unlike he originally believed, though, he didn’t fall so far that he lost connection with the force. The council did disconnect him. But he had fallen fully shortly before the force had left him.

He knew what it felt like to bend the force to his will, let the power consume him and unleash itself upon his enemies. He had never felt as powerful as he did when he was fighting in the war. Did he become weaker by turning back to the light? No. He did not believe that at all. He KNEW he was more powerful now, but it just didn’t feel like it. He hoped that Twilight was used to being powerful. The way she made it seem, she could do pretty much whatever she wanted with magic, so maybe the Force wouldn’t pull so much on her. Really, her magic seemed even more powerful than the Force. Was that possible?

He didn’t know, but it was probably something he would find out eventually. She was progressing so quickly already with her Force abilities. He had already felt her brush up against his conscience a few minute earlier. It took many people months before they could do that. He couldn’t even do it until Kreia had taught him. That’s when he learned he could hear the thoughts of others. And that’s when Atton had showed him how to combat letting others into your mind. It’s not that he didn’t trust Twilight, but he just wasn’t ready to reveal his past to her quite yet. He figured she was still practicing right now. She seemed like a very determined individual that wouldn’t stop practicing until she could control the Force with as much ease as any master. It really was something…

The next day passed with little interaction between Twilight and Kaleb. Twilight hadn’t realized how many words could be stored in a datapad. Before she had realized it, the datapad she had started reading first on how hyperspace worked, and how hyperdrives allowed them to access it, many hours had passed. She estimated that she had spent eight straight hours reading. With her reading speed, that meant that the datapad had somewhere around seven-hundred thousand words in it. As soon as she was through with it, she came to notice how hungry and thirsty she was.

She went to the cockpit and found Kaleb passed out in the pilot’s seat. She didn’t want to disturb him, so she went to the storage room and found the food dispenser. After a few minutes, she was able to figure out how to work the thing. After withdrawing some water and some sort of vegetable, she went back to the dorm to eat it. The water was nice and cold, and the vegetable was very tasty. It was filling enough, and it left her refreshed enough. But with a full stomach she found her eyelids feeling heavy. She lay down and drifted off to sleep as her mind pondered on hyperspace, and how she might be able to use this knew knowledge and take it back with her to Equestria.

Kaleb was the first of the two to wake. He checked their flight and found that they were still a good twenty hours off the system. He sighed and went to get something to eat. He noticed that Twilight had figured out how to get food, which was good. After a small breakfast, he went to the port side dorms and found Twilight still asleep with datapads all around her.

“Serious studier, it seems. I wonder if all of the other… ponies from her world are so damn adorable.” As he pondered his question, he went to the other dorm to meditate. Still twenty hours to go… What did they always do to pass the time before? It felt like when he was traveling with Atton and all of them that time just passed so quickly. Time seemed to fly when their lives were at threat every step of their journey.

But it is nice to finally be at ease for once. Maybe this is why Revan left? To get away from everything? Kreia never did tell me…

“That old hag…”

And then she had to turn out to be evil. Well, I suppose it wasn’t so much evil, as she just didn’t want to be manipulated by the Force… It had only been a week since he had left Malachor 5 behind him. He still hadn’t had much time to ponder over Kreia’s situation. As far as Sith lords go, she was probably the least evil out of any of them. Really, she was as neutral as they came. I mean, can I really hold it against her, not wanting her fate to be determined by the Force? That’s why she wanted to use me… I was able to turn away from the Force and come back to it, and she wanted to use me as a way to end the Force forever. But that would leave everything so lifeless…

Before he had much more time to ponder, he heard the clopping of hooves on metal that disturbed him from his meditation. He stood and went to find Twilight in the main hold, admiring the center console.

“Did you rest well?” He asked her.

“Yes I did, actually. The beds on this ship are surprisingly comfortable for apparently being a smuggler’s vessel.”

“I was just as surprised as you the first time I slept on this ship. Anyways, we’re about twenty hours still from the system still. So it’ll be a while yet before we land.”

“That’s fine. I still have more reading to do. I finished the one over how hyperspace works. I’ve got so much work to do when I get home to bring all of this technology with me!”

“Electricity is still new to you, yet you think you can bring hyperdrive technology back? You’ve got some big dreams.”

“Of course. The way the hyperdrive works though is not as complicated as I originally thought. I reasoned that with the right sort of magic, we could probably yield the same desired effects that we could use for so many things!”

“Well, I’ll let you get to that. I’m going to make sure my swordsmanship hasn’t gotten rusty in the past week.” Twilight followed him, as the cargo hold was on the way to the dorm. As soon as she saw him pull the lightsaber hilt from his belt, she got curious.

“What’s that thing?”

“Oh, this? This is my lightsaber. A lightsaber is the weapon of a Jedi.” As he activated it, a pure silver blade emitted from the hilt, casting a white light on the dim cargo hold.

“Oh wow! What is it made of?”

“Plasma. A beam of plasma is emitted through a lens to focus it into a blade, and the beam is looped around at the tip back into the lens. The hilt can hold three different crystals: one of the crystals is for color, and the other two effect the nature of the blade.”

“It’s so pretty… But that sounds extremely dangerous. Plasma has to exist at such a high heat. Aren’t you worried you might hurt yourself?”

“See, that’s why a lightsaber can only be fully used by a trained Force user. The blade is essentially weightless, since it’s almost entirely energy. That makes it even more dangerous, because you have no feeling of weight when you swing. But a Jedi has the training and sense enough to feel the blade. You are correct; any other person could very well injure themselves with a lightsaber.”

“Wow… Are they all mostly silver?”

“Oh the contrary; silver is an extremely rare color. It’s so hard to find a silver lightsaber crystal. Most Jedi use blue, green, or yellow, and Sith generally use red blades. The color doesn’t so much determine anything, though. I’ve known many Jedi who used red blades, simply because they prefer the color red. In the Jedi order, the three normal colors typically represent the sort of class of Jedi you are.”

“Blue blades are typically used by Jedi Guardians. They are very skilled in lightsaber combat, but their use of the Force is not so honed as that of the Consulars. Consulars use green blades, and are very adept at using Force powers, but aren’t as good with lightsabers as Guardians. Then there are the Sentinels, who use yellow blades typically. They strike a good balance between the Guardian and the Consular when it comes to their combat skills, but they are also very good at general other skills, like computers and repair work.”

“Wow, it sounds like a sort of neat system. Do you get to pick what sort of Jedi you want to be? Or is it sort of chosen for you?”

“The Order lets Jedi pick for themselves, but you can typically know what sort of Jedi you would be. I was never the best at lightsaber combat, but I was always great with my Force abilities. That lead me to know that I was to become a Consular.”

“But didn’t you say you were a Jedi Master? Or is that a rank?”

“Well, it is a rank, but it’s also a furthered Jedi Consular. I am much more powerful than the typical Consular.”

“I see. What do you think I would be?”

“From the one day I’ve known you, I’d say probably a Consular. But, who knows? I’ve never seen you wield a lightsaber before. I don’t know how you would handle situations. We’ll come to that road when we cross it.”

“Okay. I think I’ll watch you practice while I read.” She returned with the other four datapads and sad down and watched as Kaleb closed his eyes and swung at enemies only he could see.

“Oh, I was going to ask you,” he said, dodging an invisible lightsaber, ”how did you manage to read a seven-hundred thousand word datapad so quickly?” He swung at the enemy, which presumably died as he ducked under a swing from behind and retaliated with a backwards swing of his own while bending over backwards.

“Remember I told you, reading is my thing.” She giggled and continued to read, converse, and watch him all at the same time. “You know, for fighting invisible enemies, you don’t seem so bad at swordsmanship.”

“Always train to make your weaknesses your strengths. A wise person once told me that, and I guess I took it to heart, heh.” Makes me laugh, now that I think about it; Kreia seemed so surprised at how good I had become at lightsaber combat when we last fought on Malachor 5. I guess she didn’t think I ever listened to her.

“I see. Do you mind if I try it?”

“The lightsaber? Sure, I guess. But please be very careful with it. Not for its sake, but for your own.”

“I promise I will handle it with care.” Kaleb walked over and handed it to her. She grabbed it in her magic and twisted the hilt around, examining it.

“I thought you couldn’t use your magic?”

“Well, usually how unicorns handle things is they just throw excess amounts of magic at spells to make them function correctly. I learned that if you use your magic more efficiently, you don’t have to use but a small fraction of the amount of magic. It’s something to get used to, I guess. How do you turn this thing on?”

“There’s a switch. Press it.” As soon as he said that, the blade turned on and startled Twilight. She held it in her magic grasp and stared in awe at the beauty of the silver blade.

“It’s gorgeous; such an ingenious weapon. This blade is hot and concentrated enough to cut through pretty much anything, but it’s crafted with such care and delicacy that only the most finesse of users can properly wield them…” She swung the blade around, taking note of the lack of mass behind the swing.

“What does it feel like if two blades collide?”

“See, it’s a really weird feeling. It’s weightless and offers no resistance in the swing, but when it contacts another blade, they clash just as two metal swords would. It’s something to get used to.”

“I’m very impressed. Brutality and elegance, all wrapped up in one small package.” She switched the blade off and handed it back to Kaleb, who then again switched it on and got immediately back to training.

“It’s nice that you really get it. So many Jedi, even Guardians, just don’t have the right respect for their blades, I feel. That respect will get you a long ways in learning to use one.”

“Do you have any extras?”

“Oh do I. I’ve collected oodles of lightsabers and parts over the course of my journey. I won’t allow you to have one though, until you’ve reached that step in your training. There is a way to go about this, and you will get there eventually, I promise.”

“I understand.” As Kaleb practiced, Twilight read up on how holograms worked. For a good solid hour, the two said nothing else and kept to their activities. Kaleb eventually tired out and got water from the food storage and took a break.

“Man, you weren’t kidding when you said you can read. You’re already almost a hundred thousand words in, and it’s only been an hour!”

“I’m a scholar by nature.” She said simply, her eyes moving almost unnaturally fast across the screen, taking in the information. “Oh, that reminds me, what did you do with my saddlebags? I brought some of my own reading material, as well as some scrolls and quills for note taking.”

“Oh, your bag is still in the medical room. If you want, I can give you a blank datapad to record anything you feel necessary on. They can hold a lot more than a scroll.”

“Thanks, but I’ll stick to scroll and quill.” She continued reading.

Kaleb shrugged and went back to the cockpit. The remainder of the trip was mostly Twilight reading and Kaleb training. They both met up coincidentally to eat, and then went to their separate dorms to sleep away the rest of the trip.

Sleep did not come quickly for Twilight, who was only half way through her datapad on how blasters worked. She yawned and took a sip of the coffee that she had found in the food stock and prepared. It was much stronger than any other coffee she had ever had before, but it was absolutely delicious for that fact. Twilight loved a strong cup of Joe.

She took a moment to set the datapad down and rub the sleep from her eyes, and before she could get back to it, Kaleb stepped in the room wearing night clothes.

“Weren’t you going to go to sleep?” He asked her. “Tomorrow is likely to be a very busy day, and you’ll need all the rest you can get.”

“Weren’t YOU going to sleep as well? I’ll be fine. I’m not stranger to late nights and busy days. Besides, I’m a little nervous about tomorrow, so I decided to make this coffee and do some more reading.”

“Why are you nervous?”

“Well, from the way you described this world, it’s likely to be a lot more dangerous than my own. I just have this feeling we’re going to get into some sort of battle, and I’m afraid of what might happen. It’s not so much that I might get hurt, but more that I really don’t want to hurt anything or anyone, you know?”

“That’s a problem I’ve been wrestling for years. I promise that our relations will be a diplomatic as possible. As a Jedi Consular, I aim to solve any problem with words over combat. But, sometimes that’s just not an option; I can’t promise you anything about tomorrow.”

“I understand.” Twilight yawned again, her eyes starting to get painfully heavy.

“You can stay on the ship tomorrow, if you’d like. “ He offered.

“No. I will not stay on the ship. Besides the fact that you might need help, I can’t allow myself to sit idle while there are things to be discovered for the first time. I’ll do whatever I need to help you out, Kaleb. If that means getting a little rough, I’ll just have to learn to live with it.”

Kaleb shook his head and went to step out of the room. Twilight heard him mumble very quietly before stepping out of sight, “It’s not something you can learn to live with…”

Twilight pondered the statement for a moment before finishing her coffee and setting the cup to the side. She looked at the datapad in front of her and ignited her magic, lifting it into the air. She hadn’t done much to work on improving how much she could do with her magic today. She wish she had worked a little more, but hindsight is 20/20 she figured. For all she knew, the planets could be uninhabitable, and they might have come all the way out here for nothing.

If she kept fretting over it, she’d never get to sleep. She sighed and laid the datapad on the ground and then settled in against the bed. The ship maintained a perfect temperature, so no sheets were needed to stay comfortable.

Over in the starboard dorm, Kaleb lay on his own bed. It was so rare to find someone with as much power and potential as Twilight with no blood on their hands… or hooves, as it were. Was it fair to her that she landed on his ship, where danger was imminent, and the only way to protect yourself was through killing?

It was her decision to come to this world, though, and if she’d landed somewhere other than his ship, there’s no telling what she’d be experiencing right now. The Force had its reasons for putting her with him. The fact that she had managed to land on his ship in mid warp is no mere coincidence.

Though Kreia was confirmed evil, Kaleb still felt an attachment to her. The bond that they shared was broken at that last fight, but he still felt the need to ask himself what she would say in this situation. He knew exactly what she would say, and he could even hear her say it.

“This Twilight Sparkle is perfectly naïve about this world that you can bend her to your will easily. Use her correctly, and she might become the most powerful ally you could imagine.” Along with some other stuff about how she should only be used, not befriended. Her wisdom was great and her advice was always sound. The only problem was the morality question.

Kreia would have scoffed at him for caring about letting her dirty her own hooves, and probably rightfully so. But still, it’s something he was having an awfully hard time getting off of his mind…

Eventually, with enough will power, Kaleb was able to clear his mind and fall asleep. The ship was set to sound a wakeup call when they were within an hour of the planet. As Kaleb drifted to sleep, his dreams began to fill with images of purple ponies.

Author's Note:

Chapter three! Again, I hope this isn't too boring right now. I really just wanted to explore these two's characters a little and get them acquainted with each other before stuff starts happening. Adventure awaits, so stick around. UNTIL NEXT TIME, ON DRAGON BALL Z!

As usual, please leave me a comment on how you think I'm doing! Please don't be afraid to tell me something you don't like about this. I accept all commentary or criticism on my work, no matter how big or little. Also, if you want to apply to be a proof reader and editor, just shoot me a note! I need someone to tell me about how bad I am at making up how shit works!