Hello, everybody, this is the official Chapter 26! I've made some significant changes to it, so I encourage that if you read the original Chapter 26, Leia's Teachings, that you need to read the updated version. Hope you enjoy it, and may the Force be with you!

Sincerely,

VikaFromTheMoon

Chapter 26

The Grey Jedi

"What do you mean train us?" Finn asked Leia.

"I may be old, but I've still got it in me." Leia said with a small chuckle. "Besides, Finn, you and Ben are the only ones who can free Rey from Palpatine."

A question mark seemed to appear above Finn's head.

Before he could ask another question, Leia answered it for him. "You're strong with the Force. I feel it."

"But I know nothing of the Force!" Finn argued.

"That's why I'm going to teach you." Leia moved her attention away from Ben and Finn and focused it on Temiri instead. "As for you, Temiri, Ben and Finn may need you."

"If training will help us save Rey, then I'm down for it." Temiri said.

Leia gave him a gentle smile. "You have the spirit of a Jedi. Well then, let's get started, shall we?"

Leia started with a basic exercise. Lifting rocks. She gathered some rocks on the beach and put them together in a pile. Then, she pulled the three Force-sensitive youths behind her arm so she could demonstrate. Leia held her hand in front of her. One by one, the rocks lifted into the air and created a ring. The sight was breathtaking.

Finn couldn't help but to say, "Wow."

Temiri was the first one to try the exercise. He passed it with flying colors. The rocks created their ring and seemed to stare at him. Like Leia, they too were impressed.

Ben Solo had a little bit of trouble. This was because he was used to using Dark Side energy, not Light. Unfortunately for him, the rocks did not create a ring. Instead, they flew all over the place.

Leia, Temiri, Finn, and Ben ducked under them. The least they wanted was to wind up in a bacta tub so close to the final battle.

Nervous, Ben glanced at Leia. He knew she was disappointed in him. He felt it.

Finally, Finn tried the exercise, but he could feel nothing. No power surged through his body. He still felt like the same old Finn.

"You need to have confidence." Leia told him. "You know you can do this."

Inhaling a breath of air, Finn tried again. He cleared his head, thinking about nothing but the rocks. He tried to feel the Force, yet, nothing happened. What a waste of time. If he couldn't lift one rock, then how could he expect to save Rey? Finn was certain that Palpatine had already won. Without Rey, there was no hope that the Resistance would beat him.

"'Rey, be brave.'" The voice of Rey's mother woke her up. Due to Palpatine's punishment, she was extremely weakened and a little bit disoriented, but she stayed strong. To be part of the Dark Side was not the end of the world. There was still hope. She knew there was. The young woman ignored her grandfather's angry yells in her head and struggled to her hands and knees. She barely used her injured arm. Rey thought it was getting better, but it wasn't. Palpatine wasn't the only one stripping her of her life energy. So was her injury.

Rey was still in the Sith Tunnel. Surrounding her and hidden in the shadows were all the gates and cages she caught a glimpse of before she fell unconscious. Inside them were members of the First Order, as well as prisoners they picked up from different planets in the galaxy. Palpatine captured the generals, mechanics, clones, stormtroopers, etc. Thank goodness Finn wasn't on The Limpton when this happened.

For the first time ever, Rey noticed that the First Order prisoners looked frightened. They did not want to join Palpatine, yet he was trying to force them. Rey wanted to help, but at the same time, the Dark Side of the Force told her not to. She fought her feelings and stared into her enemies' faces. She could feel it. The Light Side of the Force. It was interfering with her Dark Side self. Frustrated, the young woman gripped either side of her head and yelled. She had no idea what to do. What could she do?

Temiri, Ben, and Finn felt Rey's struggle. Ben and Finn were most affected by it. Rey's aura was getting weaker, meaning that she was dying faster than they thought she was. It turned out that the injury the Beacerika gave her on Dark Side Island was fatal. This realization caused them to literally collapse to their knees. Both Ben and Finn gasped. It looked like they were having trouble breathing.

"What do you feel?" Leia wanted to know.

"Rey. Her injury –" Finn could not bring himself to finish his sentence. Therefore, Kylo Ren had to help him.

"It's fatal."

"We need to go to her." Finn struggled to his feet. He started to make his way back in the direction of the Resistance Base, but Leia whacked his chest with her cane.

"We can't. You're not ready."

"But –" Finn argued.

"For now, she is perfectly fine." Leia said. "As long as we keep training, you'll be able to save her."

"She wants to turn back to the Light Side." Ben explained.

"And she will do just that," said Leia. "After all, Rey is neither good nor bad. She walks the line between the Light and Dark Sides of the Force."

Off to the side, Temiri mumbled under his breath. "I thought so." The whole time he was with Rey on Phonolukamy, he noticed this. Rey was no ordinary Jedi. She was a Grey Jedi. Both the Jedi and the Sith lived within her.

"Rey's powers are unbalanced, but that's just because she is special." Leia explained to Ben and Finn. "She does not know the true extent of it."

Finn took a deep breath. If that was the case, then he had to train extra hard. He narrowed his eyebrows and focused his attention on the pile of rocks. "Please, Rey, you need to fight it," he begged. "Hang on just a little bit longer. I'm not going to let you die."

Amazingly, Rey received his message, and she communicated back to him. "It's okay, Finn. I knew I was flying to my death even before I left Supher."

"You can't give up!" Finn shouted in his head. "We're going to save you!" His desperation to help his friend triggered his Force abilities. Suddenly, Finn felt a surge of energy in his body. "I feel it," he whispered to himself. He cleared his mind from Rey and just thought about the rocks.

Ben, Leia, and Temiri watched him. Their mouths literally dropped when one by one; the rocks floated up from the pile. Instead of making one circle, they broke up and created two.

A grin stretched across Leia's face. "Finn! You're doing it!" She clapped her hands together.

"Incredible." Ben added. He always felt that Finn was Force-sensitive, but he never realized just how Force-sensitive he was.

Finn rose to his feet. Like Leia, he held his hand out to the rocks. They danced on the nighttime air currents and kept on creating circles. It looked as if the stars had fallen and landed on Palm Tree Beach. The sight was marvelous. If only Rey could see what was happening right now.

She couldn't. She was still contemplating whether or not she should free the First Order. She fought Palpatine to the best of her abilities. He punished and punished her, but she pulled through. Both Light and Dark memories flew through her brain: meeting Finn, learning under Luke, and Han Solo's death. It was like what happened on Supher all over again, when the Beacerika pulled her into both Light and Dark situations. There was a reason why it snuffed her out on Dark Side Island. She just had to figure out what that reason was. Why did the Beacerika give her a fatal injury? Did it want to hurt her, or was this all part of its plan to have Rey find her place in the galaxy? There were so many questions, but many were unanswered.

Rey paced back and forth in front of the cages. She rubbed sweat from her forehead as she tried to make up her mind.

A young First Order stormtrooper begged for her to help. "Please. We want Palpatine dead just as much as you." Even though she couldn't see his face, Rey knew he was serious. Yelping, she clutched her head with both hands. She may have been Palpatine's granddaughter, but she wasn't like him. Palpatine was Palpatine. Rey was Rey. She was never an official part of the Dark Side. That's why she felt so conflicted being here.

Leia tried a lightsaber exercise with Temiri, Ben, and Finn. She grabbed two more lightsabers from the Resistance Base and gave them to Finn and Temiri, while Rey's lightsaber went to Ben. By now, Supher's moons were high in the sky. They were full tonight. Palm Tree Beach, which was closest to the base, was the best place to try the exercise.

Ben, Finn, and Temiri stood in a line.

Leia asked Rose to help her. They both brought out a blaster, and they shot them at the Force-sensitive youths. The blasters were dumbed down, so they wouldn't technically hurt if either Ben, Finn, or Temiri missed a parry. It would just be a little pinch. The Resistance used blasters like these when training their soldiers. Temiri succeeded in not only parrying a bolt, but also knocking down a tree. Ben momentarily gave in to his hate and anger. With each blaster bolt, he yelled and knocked it back.

Leia shouted at him. "Feel the Light coursing through you, Ben! If I can feel it, so can you!"

Since Finn's never really handled a lightsaber before, he at first really struggled with the exercise. The sight of the blaster bolts scared him, and he dodged them.

Leia threw a tip at him. "Don't give in to fear. Fear is a path to the Dark Side." How could Finn not be scared? His best friend was literally dying as he was doing this.

Rey's aura continued to flush through his and Ben's bodies. It was still weak, but it hadn't gotten weaker. She was holding on the best she could.

"Please, Rey." Ben begged. He took a deep breath and calmed himself down. This allowed him to parry a few blaster bolts without losing himself to his anger.

Finn could hear Ben's message in his own head. It was strange. Both he and the ex-Sith were working together to communicate with Rey. This helped him realize something. If there was any hope to win this war, then the Resistance had to use teamwork. They needed to turn their greatest foes into allies.

Just as Ben was now an ally of the Resistance, so were the imprisoned First Order members.

"Stop it! Stop it!" Rey shouted. She couldn't take all this stress. She wanted to listen to her friends, but at the same time, she didn't want to disobey her grandfather.

It didn't get any better when the First Order prisoners stuck their hands through the bars of their cages and gates and begged her to help them.

"Teamwork. Teamwork." Rey heard Ben say in her head. "We need to use teamwork."

"Teamwork." Rey repeated in a groggy voice. She felt the Light Side of the Force overlapping with the Dark Side. Her Grey Jedi instincts kicked in, and she made up her mind. Rey ignited her red lightsaber, buzz, and ran it through the cages and gates. She freed the First Order, but she was getting weaker by the second. Her arm. It was starting to take its toll on her. By the time she finished slashing the last of the cages and gates, she was so out of breath that she fell against the prison's wall. Her clothes were drenched in sweat. Her life was fading before her eyes.

"Rey!" yelled the young First Order stormtrooper who said he wanted Palpatine dead just as much as her. He picked her up in his arms, causing her lightsaber to shut off and fall from her hand.

Palpatine, or better said, Palpatine's spirit was not impressed. His own granddaughter turned against him. She was both a Sith and a Jedi. He was not going to let her win. If he could possess General Hux, then there was no way he could use that same method on the young stormtrooper. He intended to do just that. The Resistance could try all they wanted, but they were not going to win. The final battle was just around the corner, and Palpatine could not wait to get started.

Finn, Temiri, and Ben trained for the rest of the night. Leia taught them a few fighting moves of her own, and they mimicked her. Finn and Temiri were getting better at using a lightsaber, and Ben was getting used to the Light Side again. By the end of the night, they were in perfect synch with each other. They lunged at the same time, jumped at the same time, and dodged the blaster bolts at the same time. Leia also taught them how to use the Force in order to pass one lightsaber off to another person, just in case something happened and two lightsabers went missing, or were destroyed.

Rose fell asleep with her back propped up against a coconut palm.

Leia borrowed her blaster, so now she carried two. For the last exercise, she shot both blasters at the same time.

Finn and Ben kept their eyes glued to the bolts. Ben nodded at Finn, telling him that now was the time to parry. Together, they lifted their lightsabers, and the blaster bolts crashed into them.

"Well done! That was excellent!" Leia clapped her hands together.

Ben and Finn thanked her. They shut off their lightsabers.

Temiri was the last guinea pig of the lesson. Leia fired her blasters. Temiri waited until the bolts were an inch away from him before he blocked them. Ben communicated with him through the Force and told him that was the best time for the parry.

Laughing, Leia said, "Excellent! You three used teamwork, and that's why you won. I think it's safe to say that you're finally ready for battle."

Temiri also shut off his lightsaber. He smiled at Ben and Finn, and they returned it.

Just before the youths could head inside to the base and grab something to eat, a very anxious Poe suddenly sprinted out of it. "General!" he yelled. He hurried to Leia. His boots kicked up sand, and it flew into Rose's mouth.

Snapping awake, she shouted, "Yuck!" She moved her head back and forth at a quick pace. "What happened?!"

"What's wrong, Poe?" Leia asked the pilot.

Poe stopped in front of her, out of breath. He placed his hands on his knees, saying, "Bad news! The Limpton has entered Supher's atmosphere! We're under attack!"

Ben, Temiri, Finn, Rose, and Leia looked up to the newborn day. Sure enough, there was The Limpton. It had not yet reached Supher's surface, but it was getting close.

At the sight of it, Leia nodded. "Then it is time." She glanced at Ben, Temiri, and Finn out the corners of her eye. "The final battle has begun."