Leana led the way, following Qui-Gon's directions to find the exit of the cave. Lumina, Lucas, and Ben hurried after her, glancing over their shoulders to ensure the wampa wasn't behind them.
Finally, Leana saw a bright white expanse ahead of her, differing from the duller ice inside the cave. Lumina pointed, noticing it at the same time she did. "There. The exit."
The four quickened their pace and came to a stop at the mouth of the cave. Narrowing their eyes against the blindingly white snow, the four stared at the broad expanse.
"Whoa," Leana breathed. "It's Hoth."
"What now?" Lumina asked, her hands on her hips. "I mean, I know we need to find Luke and join the Alliance, but how do we get from here to there?"
"Master Jinn didn't seem to feel a need to divulge those steps," Ben said dryly. "But we have a wampa somewhere behind us and nothing but snow ahead. We have to figure this out quickly."
"I don't think we even have that luxury," Lucas commented. "Mr. Monster has caught up with us."
The other three whirled around. Indeed, a hairy beast was making his way up the cave path towards them, increasing his speed on realizing they had seen him.
"Run!" Leana yelled, taking off. Lumina, Ben, and Lucas dashed after her, and she had never seen them run so fast. Then again, there was a bloodthirsty wampa after them. If that wasn't incentive, Leana didn't know what was.
The snow gave way slightly under their feet, crunching as they raced across the expanse. The wampa roared behind them and when Leana glanced back, he was chasing after them.
"He's following!" Ben said, his voice rising.
"Keep running!" Leana barked.
The four crested a tall snowbank and slid down the other side. As soon as they reached the bottom, Leana grabbed Lumina's and Ben's arms and forced them back up onto their feet.
"We have to keep going," Leana ordered. "Lose the wampa, then find Skywalker."
"Got it," Lucas panted.
The four took off again. A glance behind them told Leana the wampa was descending the snowbank. Snow was beginning to fall.
"We can't...run...forever," Lumina gasped. "Lee...ana, we –"
"I know," Leana replied shortly. "Save your breath."
A snowbank loomed before them across the flat snow plain, too tall to climb in a hurry. Leana glanced quickly to either side of her but saw the same thing. They had no other way to escape the valley.
They were trapped.
"Leana!" Lucas wailed. "What are we going to do?"
"Exactly as I tell you," Leana ordered. "Ben, spit out everything you know about the wampa."
"Carnivorous, thick coats to resist the cold, nasty claws, packs a strong wallop," Ben recited. "Tends not to like lightsabers."
"Good thing we're fresh out of those!" Lumina pointed out.
"Guys," Lucas said warningly.
"Wampa packs are a thing," Ben continued, ignoring the two.
"Guys," Lucas repeated, with more force this time.
"What, Lucas?" Leana demanded, spinning to face him. Lucas pointed in the direction they had come.
"Where did the wampa go?" he asked.
Leana turned and scanned the white plain. Lucas was right – there was no wampa to be seen.
"Oh, yeah," Ben said. "Did I mention they are great at camouflage and can blend in with their natural habitat?"
"That would have been good to know!" Lumina snapped at him as Leana frantically wracked her brain for solutions to their problem.
The wampa could be anywhere right now. Leana couldn't see any movement but she wasn't sure how good the creatures were at sneaking around. It didn't help that the wind had picked up and was blowing the falling snow around, lessening visibility by a good bit.
The ice creatures had managed to ambush Luke in the movie, anyway.
"What do we do?" Ben demanded, his wampa info session finished.
"Calm down!" Leana snapped. "We need to focus. We're better than this."
"Are we?" Lucas asked honestly. "You do know fighting wampas in a non-Battlefront setting isn't exactly something we just...do. And without a rocket launcher and the ability to respawn? Forget it."
Leana waved her hand for him to shut up. "Think! That wampa is about to show back up and we're stuck in this valley. Not only do we need a way out, we need a way to fight this thing. Ben, anything else we can use against them besides lightsabers?"
Ben thought quickly. "If we're good, we can jam something in its eye, take it out that way."
"Leana's good," Lumina said, rationality taking over. "Now we just need something –"
Ben reached into his pocket and removed the cheese stick Lumina had given him earlier. "I have cheese."
Lucas pulled out a pocketknife. "Hey, there's this."
Leana grabbed the pocketknife. "I'll take this." Turning, she moved her gaze over the plain, looking for a movement that would give the wampa away. "Now, when it shows up –"
Something prompted her to spin quickly to the right, just as Lumina screamed and threw herself backwards as the wampa, seeming to come out of nowhere, swiped at her with its paw. Leana ran towards it at an angle, knowing she only had one shot to do this.
Ben hurled his cheese stick at the wampa as he rushed to Lumina's side, Lucas waving his arms in an attempt to distract the beast. As the wampa began to turn to Lucas, a growl forming in its throat, Leana launched herself at the creature.
Time seemed to slow as she saw everything clearly. Lucas, Lumina, and Ben all became distinctly present before the wampa, their fear and determination palpable in the air. The wampa before her was a mass of threatening energy, but yet Leana also sensed his hunger. In the end, he was just trying to get a meal.
But he won't eat me.
Leana could see her next move so clearly, it was like it had already happened. The exact places where she needed to grab onto the wampa's fur, the place where her foot would go, the precise direction she would need to lean in order to keep her balance – it all flashed before her vision in startlingly clear fashion. She was vaguely aware of the fact that her jump had brought her higher than she thought it would right before everything switched back to normal.
The thick fur provided easy handholds as Leana shoved her foot onto the wampa's pelvic bone to steady herself. The creature roared and twisted, swinging its paws in an attempt to reach Leana but failing.
"Hey! Monster! Over here!" Lucas continued to wave his hands. "Ignore her! Just try and get me!"
Lumina was back on her feet, Ben beside her. Leana hoisted herself up to the wampa's shoulder and flicked the pocketknife blade open. The creature whipped to one side as Lucas came closer, intent on keeping the wampa's attention on him and not Leana. "Hey! Beast!" Lumina and Ben both joined in yelling at the wampa, trying to confuse it.
Leana gritted her teeth and positioned her knife for the blow. Taking a deep breath and settling her nerves, she lifted the knife and started to bring it down –
– just as the wampa whipped his other arm back and struck Leana in the face.
Stunned, Leana let go of his fur and toppled back into the hard snow. Slamming against the ground, the air was forced out of her lungs and she gasped for breath, pain ricocheting through her. Ben and Lumina began to sprint towards her as Lucas rushed the wampa in an attempt to distract it, but they wouldn't reach their targets in time. It was all on Leana as the creature turned towards her, the claws of the offending arm bloody.
The pocketknife would do nothing once the wampa dropped his paw on her head again. The blow that had knocked her off its shoulder had just been glancing – she wouldn't survive another blow. She didn't even have the breath to scream at the others to run and save themselves.
Some Star Wars hero Leana had turned out to be.
Lifting her hand, she tried to gesture to the others to stop, to leave, as she attempted to catch her breath. The wampa was standing above her now. Only seconds remained.
Leave! she thought.
Leana's next gesture froze the wampa in its tracks.
Leana could feel something coursing through her hand, causing it to tremble as somehow, the monster was shoved slowly backwards. The only thing holding it back was...her.
How in the heck...?
Slowly, the wampa continued to slide backwards as Leana kept her hand up. But the effort of holding it back through sheer force of will was too much and her concentration slipped. The wampa surged forward and Leana rolled to one side, just out of the way. The creature, already swinging his paw down, ended up off balanced and Leana jammed her knife up, focusing on its eye.
The wampa roared, jerking back from Leana just as a laser streaked through the air and struck the creature in the back. Stumbling away from the girl, the beast turned in the direction of the shooter in time to receive three successive blasts in its chest, which sent it dropping to the ground.
Leana glanced up, her vision blurring, as a tauntaun jogged down the slope towards them, its bundled up rider holding the blaster responsible for the lasers. Something warm dripped into her eye, causing it to sting, as she forced herself to sit up, her breath returning.
Lucas, Ben, and Lumina were all staring at the approaching rider. Leana tilted her head, brushing her hand against her stinging eye as she tried to identify the shooter. Light colored clothing...standard Rebel gear...so not Han Solo.
Could it be...?
Leana glanced down at her hand and noticed, sort of distantly, that there was dark blood on her fingertips. For a moment, she wondered where it had come from before remembering swiping at her eye. Her head was bleeding, somewhere.
"Leana."
Dazedly glancing up, she saw Qui-Gon Jinn standing a couple feet in front of her, looking at her with an impassive expression. Dabbing at her forehead and finding more blood there, she blinked rapidly and tried to focus but failed. "What?" she managed.
"You survived your first test, albeit barely. Keep your wits about you – more trials will come. You must prove yourself worthy, young Padawan. You must."
His form began to flicker. Either that, or Leana's vision was going. "May the Force be with you."
The Force, she thought. That explains it.
And then it all went black.