The next morning we learned that our instructors had been given permission to put us into the initiate trials early and that we would be given 4 chances to try for padawan instead of the usual three. If we somehow pass and get chosen to become a padawan by a knight or master than we will graduate to padawan earlier than pretty much anyone. We were told that our chances at this were pretty much zero as despite our high combat prowess we were still behind older initiates by multiple years.
I had already known this from my past life knowledge and had told the others. I wanted to take this chance to test myself against the actual test and maybe catch the eye of the masters. I wasn't very worried about catching their attention however as most of the temple knew us as we could easily be found in training rooms throughout the temple or trying to sneak into parts of the archive we weren't allowed access to.
Some of us had even gotten into those areas and got out with more advanced techniques and such. Our clan was also quite infamous for challenging padawans to spars and bombarding any masters we found with questions. At some point I had even found and questioned Obi-Wan on whatever he could tell me of Soresu.
Eventually the day came for the test and we started by waiting for the masters to enter the room it would be held. The first test passed with ease as we simply had to pass a test of our knowledge of the code. The second test was slightly harder as we had to display competency in the force through meditation, saber technique with the blinding helmets against hovering droids, and basic force abilities.
The third test was a test of our connection to the force. This test took most of the day as it was done by the council with the student in private. We would enter the chamber and begin meditation. During the meditation Yoda would approach and use the force to test your personal connection.
After the third test was completed we gathered in the large training hall we had been in and the knights and master were given dataslates to look at. From their names were called out and initiate walked to their new masters. Our instructors informed us after the trials we had all gotten good results but non of us had been chosen for multiple reasons. The largest reason was our young age which was an obvious reason we had all seen. Second was that we had all gotten some questions and knowledge wrong during the second test, which we would know from classes later on.
The last reason was that as we were still all quite young non of us had horribly strong connections to the force. All of these problems ment it would take a much longer time for our master to train us from padawan to knight. While the failure at the test had dampened spirits it had given us all something to aim for. With a new target the clan went back into action by spending the rest of the year on everything the could.
The next few year flew by as we all trained even more heavily than we had before with many of us getting in trouble for sneaking into forbidden areas to learn anything we could. I had even set up a way to sneak into the kitchens to get more food as we had increased our physical training massively. We had pretty much stolen a training bot used to fight knights and reprogrammed it to fight and train us.
We were now training in lightsaber technique under Master Drallig much more and we were seeing much more variation in combat styles. My clan mates could also more evenly spar with Ahsoka and I and beat us much more than they previously could.
A few months passed as the entire clawmouse clan struggled to gain more knowledge and control of the force along with more combat skill. We had all fallen into a rhythm of classes, training and the archive, then bed. This rhythm was how we met some very important people.
Our clan was in a training room going over some techniques found in the archive about the creation of form 6 Niman. During a lull in our discussions Ahsoka challenged me to a spar. It was pretty common for sparring to happen spontaneously in our clan so most of the clan continued to study what was found while a few watched. After around 15 minutes of Ahsoka trying to break through my defenses we noticed our clan had gone quiet.
Quiet was unusual for us as unless we were in meditation most of us could be found studying with others or simply talking. I had been trying to enter a battle trance and Ashoka knew it so she hadn't been going very hard on me. The fugue I had entered was shattered the moment she stopped attacking.
I turned around to find my clan standing and starring at the 4 people who had entered the training room. Right in front was Grand Master Yoda with Qui-Gon Jinn beside him. Behind the two masters was Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker. Anakin was 15 years old at this point and seemed to be much more levelheaded than his counterpart.
Seeing them here I bowed to them and gave them a simple greeting of
'Greetings masters.'
The others followed and gave their own greetings as they continued toward us. Master Yoda spoke while they walked 'Greetings younglings, here to observe your training we are.'
We all bobbed our heads in acknowledgment and continued our discussions and training. It was pretty common for knights and masters to show up and watch or guide us so none of us gave it much mind. The masters stood to the side and watched while Anakin joined us in our sparring. It wasn't uncommon for padawans to join us in training and Anakin had joined us many times so he integrated perfectly and eventually joined Ahsoka and I in a 2v1 spar.
He was 5 years older than us and much better at combat. It was an almost fair fight with Ahsoka and I against him. I usually engaged him directly and fought against his powerful force abilities as Ahsoka attacked and took advantage of any openings she could find. Even with us counting him and outnumbering him he still beat us every time unless we could surprise him with something.
It turned out that today we did have a surprise for him. Ahsoka had 'borrowed' a broken hover droid and we had scrapped it and made a small stun blaster. I pulled the trigger till the scrap blaster melted its internals. Anakin being Anakin felt the danger and blasted Ahsoka with a force push and spun to block every shot. This however gave Ahsoka an opening.
Her shoto saber flew as the blade passed over Anakins calf. His leg seized as the shock from the saber lanced up his leg and he buckled with his knee hitting the ground. I grabbed the shoto from the ground and walked over to him as he massaged the impacted leg. I tossed the shoto to Ahsoka and gave Anakin a hand up.
Our training quickly resumed as injuries didn't occur unless a training saber made prolonged contact with a person. I quickly defaulted into form 3 as it was what I was best with and was also best against Anakin. We continued like this till the clan began making bets on who was doing better and who would win. It was at this point that the three masters got involved.
Our sparring had seemed to become some kind of Pokemon battle as Yoda instructed Ahsoka, Qui-Gin spoke with Anakin and Obi-Wan began coordinating me with Ahsoka alongside Yoda. I was a bit stunned when I realized this was a Pokemon battle between two younglings and a padawan. This was strange but good for us as we got teachings and directions from masters which would obviously help us grow.
In the middle of our little fight Ahsoka called out to me 'Atin throw me!' This was something we had only practiced once and we hadn't even succeeded as when I threw her she crashed into me and we both hit the floor. As she charged at me I did what we had wanted to do when we practiced it. She jumped and I grabbed her with the force and and pulled her toward me as fast as I could.
When she got right in front of me I immediately dropped to my back and force pushed her right at Anakin. He barely had time to slightly slow her with the force as she rocketed into him feet first. When they both folded I knew in my mind that I was thankful that Jedi are pretty tough.
Our spar ended with that and Ahsoka and I were basically grounded for pulling a stunt like that without any actual practice. It was still a massive win in my books as I could see that the masters were trying very hard to not laugh or smile at what we had done. After that day we went back to our monotonous routine of learning and training.