A bit of swordwork

[Coren Starchaser]

The Praxeum was seeming to be more and more a third home, right behind D’Qar and the Spear of the Alliance. Sure, the ship should probably be renamed, but Starchaser was a patriot, a paladin, and a man out of time, it seemed. The Republic, and Coalition handled things differently than his government did. Sure, the latter had the Underground, which helped give rise to the Alliance, but… it was’t the same. Even the way the Jedi spoke nowadays, aside from maybe the Silvers, the crusade against the Sith wasn’t there. Maybe that was for the best?

But darkness was everywhere in the galaxy. Encroaching on the Confederacy, the First Order, Sith Empire, and even false empires. He knew the real threat, and no matter how duplicitous the Sith became, [member="Darth Carnifex"] and his enforcers were the focus for Coren. Especially after Mon Calamari. He could feel it in [member="Romi Jade"]. And he wasn’t sure what to do.

But when he got back to the Praxeum and ran across @Amilthi again, he knew it might be time to stretch his legs, and see what the recent arrival was bringing to the table. A spar was going to be fine, and Coren had gotten himself into some typical workout clothes for him. More street-ready, Corellian upper-class going to the gym, than a Jedi looking to practice.

But nothing about Starchaser and his approach to the Jedi was typical. A silver training saber hilt in his hand as he was stretching, waiting for his partner to arrive.

 

[Amilthi Camlenn]

Amilthi's solitary life did not frequently lead to the communal practice of lightsaber skills in sparring with fellow Jedi. With the exception of her brief time at the Deneba temple, she had been studying alone for years. It had led to her developing her imagination to an extraordinary degree purely out of necessity, and she could simulate movements, her own and others', in her mind almost as quickly as she could execute them. But it was likely that she was nonetheless missing something due to this lack of viscerally, physically perceptible feedback. And so she had welcomed it when [member="Coren Starchaser"] had suggested that they should practice together.

Energised after an afternoon's meditation session, she fetched a training lightsaber from the Praxeum's stock and made her way to the practice room in her comfortable black tunic and trousers. "Hello, Coren", she said, greeting him with a brief smile. For some reason they were on a first-name basis, and she didn't even quite know why, but it seemed natural.

She stepped onto the mat and took the training sabre from her belt. Warming up did not seem to be something she did.

 

[Coren Starchaser]

A changing place, the galaxy. Sometimes the horse you backed was in the front, others, it was trailing behind. The trick with being a Jedi was that there had to be hope. And with hope, anything was possible. Starchaser himself, while a protector of hope and the light, even at times ran aground with the way he looked at the galaxy. And with Romi falling dark? And going missing? He knew there were jedi out there he could trust, Veino Garn, Cambria Zadira, they’d always been there. And he knew he had more he could call on, and count on. Today, though, he was not having it.

With the fact that Romi was… he wasn’t sure, didn’t want to say gone, but turned for sure.

The worlds had to keep spinning, and Jedi were going to need him. He needed his mind in the game. When he got to the training rooms, he rolled his neck and called on the Force to just give him that quick little boost. A bit of the revitalizing energy of the light side went a long way. Nodding, and grinning to the arrival, he was happy to see her. “Thanks for making the time, Amil.” His eyes met hers, causing him to smile.

“Settling in well?” Pleasantries first.

[member="Amilthi Camlenn"]

 

[Amilthi Camlenn]

Amilthi looked at Coren quizzically for a moment. "Now that's an odd thing to thank me for, don't you think?" she eventually said with a smile.

"Well enough." After the notable insights of the past several months, it seemed to her that her own spiritual progress had slowed down, and she was well on her guard, careful not to let herself be frustrated by it. But she had taken up Coren's suggestion that she should consider teaching, and had, in fact, done more than merely consider it. The experience of instructing a handful of children and teenagers in meditation had been a revelation not entirely of the pleasant kind. She had never realised that such a significant part of it was to make them understand not only what they were learning, but also why. The young ones had all been very eager to interact with the outside world, to learn to sense and manipulate it, and some had reacted with incomprehension and disappointment to the inward focus of Amilthi's lessons.

"No desire to be off again just yet?" she asked by way of mirroring his question in an appropriately transformed guise.

[member="Coren Starchaser"]​

 

[Coren Starchaser]

An odd thing? Nah, not to Coren. He was a soldier, a crusader, a zealot. Running out into the next battlefield was what he did. Everyone had their own things to go after, and to take a minute to handle anything else? Or step into something that wasn’t in the plan? That spoke on the level of someone’s character. For him to put aside running out after Romi right now? That was saying something. As a leading member of the New Jedi Order, he was one of the first to charge into the fray on Coruscant, or any other front.

But now, he knew he was too close to the situation.

Stepping into the fight now wouldn’t allow him to keep that step between raw passion and dedicated focus. Even here he wasn’t really feeding on the Force like he normally did. A shot of high end Rylothian caf would have done the trick, but he wanted to maintain the connection, and remind himself of the light side. “Not off just yet. Wouldn’t be a smart move.”

“What saber styles are you versed in?” For him? It’d be like a smattering of a few. Nothing too in depth.

[member="Amilthi Camlenn"]

 

[Amilthi Camlenn]

Not a smart move. Amilthi briefly frowned, wondering what might be behind those words. But it would be wiser to pry into this later, if at all. People tended to be more comfortable and open after a high-energy activity like physical exertion.

At his question, Amilthi looked at Coren for a long moment, and it seemed she might sigh, although she did not. There was a certain pensive darkness in her expression all of a sudden, which then equally suddenly dissolved into a mysterious smile. "Complicated questions you ask today, Coren. Find out."

With that, she ignited the blue blade of the training sabre. She raised it to her right shoulder, angled slightly backwards behind her head, her left hand lightly on its grip in addition to her main hand.

[member="Coren Starchaser"]​

 

[Coren Starchaser]

Starchaser was a zealot. He knew it, the entire galaxy frakking well knew it too. Maybe there was something to the statements from Sarge Potteiger all those years back. Right now he just knew he had to focus up and not get too close to the edge. Even Skywalker, rumors and legends had it, had fallen to the dark before, thinking he could withstand it. Starchaser knew the darkness, and he knew if he started to slip? He’d slide. And he wasn’t about to give anyone that worry on him.

The last thing the galaxy needed was the war leading Jedi to slip.

“Sometimes they are. But yeah, first hand experience is always best.” He grinned, igniting the blade, a yellow beam ignited with the well known, and very familiar snap-hiss. Stepping forward, he kept the blade pointing down and out to the side. Not quite a Shien stance but something very close. Coren was more the ‘fast’ type of Jedi striker. Somewhere between Shien and Ataru. But to start, it was always Shien. "Let's begin."

Stepping forward, the saber came from his right, aiming for [member="Amilthi Camlenn"]'s midsection.

 

[Amilthi Camlenn]

Amilthi's lightsaber was almost the furthest it could have been from Coren's point of attack. But the practically weightless blade moved much faster than any made of normal matter would have. Simultaneously to bringing it to her lower left to block Coren's strike, she also made a step forward, which put her own lightsaber almost on the inside of his. She transferred her forward motion to her hands, in essence pulling the lightsaber to the front from what was now slightly behind her. There was a shocking ruthlessness in the lack of hesitation with which she performed a movement that, had he not made a quick step backwards and to the side, and had the lightsaber been the real thing, would have cut Coren in half right through his chest.

Even with a training saber, it would not exactly have been pleasant, had she hit. But Amilthi had put that entirely out of her mind, as she had done with the fact that the person she was fighting was a friend. His initial attack had been enough to trigger a process in her mind that she had given herself over to entirely.

She did not give her sparring partner a moment of respite. Her lightsaber came around immediately as she pressed her attack with a ferocity one should not have expected of a woman who normally appeared to quiet and composed. There was something uncanny in her handling of the weapon, it seemed erratic and unpolished, and yet the apparent imperfections had a tendency to mysteriously disappear upon any attempt to exploit them.

[member="Coren Starchaser"]​

 

[Coren Starchaser]

For him, it wasn’t even about getting a duel to end quick, or to put points on the board. He was here to work through some things, and practice his blade play. Romi knew his strengths and weaknesses, and if she was now batting for the other team? He was going to have to bring something different to the field. And fine tuning his strikes and saber forms? Even if his were more modified for the lightsaber pike like some Jedi from another time, but it was retractable. He could hit a lot of things with the two-phase weapon. Today, though, just focusing on the basics. And his strike was nothing if not basic.

But the way Amilthi moved, his blue eyes opened wide. Moving back to allow the saber to pass away, he pulled his own weapon back to him. More used to shooting at people, or hitting them with a blast of the Force, working the lightsaber angle was something different. And out of concern for what he may jump into, Starchaser was doing his best to stick away from the Force, but sometimes the Living Force just threw itself on someone.

As her blade came around, he moved his own to greet it, hoping to catch hers, and stall it out. “Where’s this coming from?” He asked, if given the chance to steady himself and pull a little distance before he would come in for a overhead assault towards her shoulder.

[member="Amilthi Camlenn"]

 

[Amilthi Camlenn]

Amilthi registered Coren's question, but gave no sign of having done so. To reply to it would mean to fall out of her fighting mindset and end this round right now. She wanted to bring this to a conclusion first.

The strength of her strike was not overwhelming and so Coren found it easy to block it head on, and she allowed him to gather himself to prepare an overhead downward strike. But as it came, instead of stepping away to evade it or attempting to block it, she stepped forward and turned around with astonishing quickness, putting herself close to Coren between him and his own lightsaber, facing away from him. Her left hand darted out to catch his wrist and prevent him from bringing his weapon back closer to him, pulling his body forwards and into her if she could, while her own blade turned around and pointed backwards past her right hip, hopefully catching Coren's stomach or leg.

Feeling the resistance of the contact of the training saber with its target, Amilthi immediately deactivated the weapon and relaxed, loosening her grip around Coren't wrist, but not letting go of it until he deactivated his own saber or moved it safely away from her.

"I'm sorry. Are you alright?" she said with genuine concern in her voice, which was much in contrast with her behaviour only seconds ago. "It comes from... a strange place inside me." She smiled softly even though she was still looking away from him. "I don't think you'd enjoy a tour. Its well-lit, but there is no heating. I'll stop it if you want to practice something... saner."

[member="Coren Starchaser"]​

 

[Coren Starchaser]

Making a bit of small talk during a spar was not something completely unheard of from Coren Starchaser. He definitely preferred a range, for weapons fire. You could speak between weapons, or clips, and get a feel for who you were with if you had’t known them previously. Maybe it was more an Outer Rim style excuse to carry on and fire weapons, but it still worked for Coren. And this was definitely different than his typical mindset when he had a weapon in his hand.

All action, no chatter.

It didn’t work for him all that well, and part of hi was wondering if his approach was off. Sith still filled the galaxy and he wasn’t able to push them back as much as he hoped. He needed more numbers, or to be a better Jedi. He wasn’t sure. Still, the Master was going to press on. Moving for his next strike was where his mind was. And that was when it was all interrupted.

The training blade hit his leg and his muscle spasmed, causing him to jump back a fair bit while still held by her hand on his wrist. Nodding, he extinguished his blade. “Strange place huh?” He didn’t move his body, remaining where he was, how he was. “I’m a Jedi, Amil, not going to scare me.”

Looking at her as she looked back at him. “And how do you mean, saner?” That had him a bit nervous. And curious.

[member="Amilthi Camlenn"]

 

[Amilthi Camlenn]

Amilthi extracted herself from her position and turned around to look at Coren, though still standing close to him. Her expression was suddenly very serious now.

"If we weren't using training weapons, you would be dead now. And I don't mean this in the trivial way - I really wouldn't have been able to stop my movement at the right point."

"It's a scary place, and if you permit me to stay with the metaphor, it took me a long time and much work to install the lights there. Strange things lurk there, and only I know that they are not, in fact, demons." A mischievous smile flitted across her face.

"My first teacher was very adamant that I should keep the gates locked as firmly as I could and never go there. He was quite wrong, but it's hard to blame him - he didn't have any experiences that would have allowed him to believe that this could be alright."

She looked to the ground for a moment, pensively, then raised her eyes again. "This is the most effective way for me to fight. And perhaps it's even a good preparation for facing a Sith. But I know Forms III and V decently well, too."

[member="Coren Starchaser"]​

 

[Coren Starchaser]

They had been a bit close, but it was a spar. Coren was not even paying that much attention. She came running at him with a saber, and was going to very quickly win that duel, having very likely mangled his leg. Not that he was a stranger to losing a limb in combat, his arm, after all, was a cybernetic. And it was coming in handy more and more as time went by. Looking at the woman he nodded.

“That’s something to get a hold of. TO be able to focus it to work for you…” He stated slowly. His eyes traced her for a second, looking more beyond her than at her. “Where were you… before the Praxeum?” That was really the question of the hour, well, now.

“Did he say why?” The Jedi Master knew the darkness, he had it in himself, he was just working every day to quell it. “So a number of forms. I know pieces of a few, being a Master you pick things up. But I’m more capable with the Force itself, or a blaster.” He nodded to his jacket, and holster, blaster still resting there.

Where did she come from?

[member="Amilthi Camlenn"]

 

[Amilthi Camlenn]

"Of course he did. Because he thought it would lead me to the Dark Side. It's... a bit of a narrow view, but then I know that most people don't do what I do, and perhaps they couldn't. To this day I never quite know what to answer people who ask why I'm so confident that this is not a danger. I... actually want to understand better why the Dark Side is even supposed to be so seductive."

"Anyway, that was a long time ago in the Galactic Republic. I left before the end of the war, settled on Tatooine a while later, and then, after many years in solitude, left that when the Empire arrived. I've spent the past couple of years in... vagrancy. It's not clear that this is over, we're still within the time frame for an individual stay in a place that has some precedent within this regimen", she remarked playfully. But what expressed itself as an undercurrent beneath this facetiousness was a deep reluctance to bind herself to anything or anyone.

"Well, shooting practice is not why we're here, is it?" she said eventually with a wry smile, and put herself back at a distance to him that was appropriate to beginning another round of sparring.

[member="Coren Starchaser"]​

 

[Coren Starchaser]

The dark side, eternal bane of the Jedi Order, and Coren’s reason for his lot in life. Hunting and chasing down the darkness was important, it needed to be done. “The dark side helps put you in a position to take power from others. It grants you a destructive set of abilities that can make you step into a place where others can’t harm you.” Again, something he knew from experience.

The dark side just crackled with energy.

“Vagrancy isn’t bad. The Republic did have a good order, many solid Jedi within its ranks.” He nodded, remembering the ones who had fallen, those who had joined him, and those who were still out there. “And this place isn’t so bad, right?” He shook his head. “It helps to have people from all walks.”

“And no, but getting a group of Jedi who are readied in ranged combat never hurts!” A smirk on his face. “Maybe some day I’ll teach you to properly shoot a rifle.’ He said, twirling the training saber in his hand, activating it.

“Show me what you’ve got.”

[member="Amilthi Camlenn"]

 

[Amilthi Camlenn]

To be seduced by the promise of destructive power - it seemed so naive and superficial to Amilthi. And perhaps it was difficult to hurt a Sith, but that was only because they were already hurting so much. No Jedi with any sense could be tempted by that - there really had to be more to it than that, or the spiritual education of most Jedi was really worth nothing. She wondered whether there was perhaps something more... organic about it - the way some people became addicted to stimcaf very quickly while others did not feel the pull at all. Or perhaps Coren was simply not expressing himself very clearly. It was, in any event, a topic to be discussed later.

As was the topic of the Republic and its Jedi Order - although that, perhaps, was indeed a topic never to be discussed at all.

Coren had not asked her not to repeat what she had done, and perhaps to practice what it might be like to fight a Sith was exactly what he wanted. Now she had to repeat the feat of putting herself into that sort of state. For a moment she thought of triggering it by making herself temporarily think of him as dangerous and reckless, with his attitudes that could easily be twisted into something contemptible. But she stopped herself from going down that path, frightened that she would succeed all too well and that it would be difficult to reverse. Instead chose a more physical approach, hoping to get into the flow by just doing, rather than thinking.

And with that intention established, she didn't wait another second to activate her lightsaber even as she had already begun the movement of a first strike. Her perception of her own movements shifted, at moments she was a spectator more than the agent, and she found a certain enjoyment in observing the quickness and energy and felt effortlessness of her own movements as her weapon twirled around in a flurry of blows that would deny her opponent any breathing room. The punishment for that would come later, afterwards, when she would start notice the physical exertion she subjected her body to, but even that exhaustion could be regarded from an agreeable perspective.

[member="Coren Starchaser"]​

 

[Coren Starchaser]

It worked for some people. Coren, on the other hand, knew what that power was. He had used it, and killed with it. Then, it felt fine, in the moment, enjoyable even. But following that? No, he wasn’t sure. It was destructive and full of ruin. It was the dark side, he was never a Sith, never that devoted. Hell, it took him years of forsaking using the dark side before he fell into the Jedi religion. At this point, it didn’t matter. He knew that by following the Jedi, he helped create a natural chaos, by not instituting control over all, but the Sith, chaotic and evil, did create a sense of order, by removed a person’s will.

Digging up the past was a way to learn for the future.

What he wanted to see, though, was her abilities, what she was capable of with her lightsaber. Being able to defend oneself was great, but for Coren, taking the fight to the enemy, to the Sith, was just as important. And if he could predict what she was doing? Maybe it would help him in the coming battles. He needed to be ready for whatever could be thrown the way of the Jedi. And I it came from within, like he knew it was with Romi? He wanted to be ready to strike.

With Amilthi’s lightsaber activating, Coren readied his stance, lightsaber in a double handed grip, by the right side of his face. Watching her feet, her hips, and her shoulders, he took a half of a step back. His lightsaber was going to be moving slower than hers. He had no misconceptions about that. He was hoping to catch her blade, and keep back pedaling until he found an opening to strike. If he had one, but it was clear this was out of his league.

Still, there had to be an opening…

[member="Amilthi Camlenn"]

 

[Amilthi Camlenn]

Coren was being evasive, more out of necessity, it seemed, than as a matter of calculation, probably looking for an opportunity to put a stop to her sequence of offensive strikes. It was the natural thing to do when one was faced with an aggressive opponent whose spirit one could not break. The lack of direct physical resistance Amilthi was feeling - the lack of a threat, indeed - made it difficult to sustain her state. Her approach was really not all that well suited to sparring with fellow Jedi who she had no deep desire to eliminate - except that the times she could maintain it would be an excellent lesson for them.

Her control lapsed and she overswung ever so slightly, and her opponent felt his opportunity come. She saw the blue light of his blade stabbing at her chest and knew that she couldn't bring hers around in time to knock it away. Instead, she let herself be carried even further by the residual momentum of her strike, turning her upper body while falling sideways to the ground. Coren's blade missed her ribs only by hair's breadth.

Amilthi rolled over herself and landed in a half-kneeling position, the knuckles of her right hand, holding the lightsabre, were uncomfortably pressed into the floor. She looked up, exhausted, a sweaty streak of hair across her face.

[member="Coren Starchaser"]​

 

[Coren Starchaser]

It wasn’t a matter of being able to hit hard. Coren was the one who fired shots that were designed to make his opponent bleed, and take them out of the fight. He knew who was the main focus in most fights, and the additional support? He would do what he could to take out their leg, or knee, and knock them to the side. He didn’t need to be fighting more than one opponent at a time. Though, he was normally a fighter pilot, or using a rifle. That made things different. A duel, like this? It was more intimate, more focused, and the Force would alert him to anyone coming at him from a different direction.

But today, it was a spar, and he new there was no threat. It was the trouble with training like this. And why when he did have a student, like Mishel, he threw them into the deep end as fast as possible. Fighting for your life was the best way to learn, and weed out those who would be having a struggle. The way that Amilthi moved though, that was not something he was used to. And he was a teleporter.

Looking down at the Sage, he nodded. It wasn’t a point for him, but it did have her on her knees. A small grin on his face as he considered this one, a bit of a victory on the spar. “What are you doing? You’re… where did you learn this form?”

[member="Amilthi Camlenn"]

 

[Amilthi Camlenn]

Seeing that Coren wasn't planning to continue this round immediately, Amilthi smiled and rose from the ground, deactivating her lightsaber. "It's the stuff of old, forbidden and forgotten books", she said with a wry smile.

She exhaled and let her head hang slightly for a moment before she straightened up again and looked at Coren. "It's... mostly a matter of what goes on in your head. If you asked me to put it in a succinct formula, it's about shedding all restraint and giving yourself the freedom to do anything at all. Not wilfully and randomly, of course - anything at all that is necessary in pursuit of your target. That's why most people consider it dangerous."

"Do you remember how I told you that I don't agree with it when people approach the matter of being a Jedi from the perspective of a code of conduct, a guide for actions? If I adopted that perspective, I couldn't do what I do. I need to approach things being absolutely certain in my ability to keep my eyes on the right target - and then I can allow myself this kind of leeway."

"On the level of the actual movement, it's mostly bits and pieces from other forms, but combined in novel ways. Things like half a kata from one form stuck together with another half from elsewhere. You probably noticed that I did a couple of things you would tell a student explicitly to avoid. I move inefficiently and abruptly, things don't flow into each other very well. That's the price to pay, and why it's so exhausting."

"Let me show you something." She ignited her lightsaber again and adopted the Shien stance from which he had started their first round. "This is more of a defensive stance, but one can attack from it as well, as you did. And then you would normally have continued like this." She executed a standard Form V kata in which the strikes neatly flowed into each other to preserve the body's momentum.

"Now here is what I could do instead." She resumed the initial position again and briefly closed her eyes to attend to how her body felt. She noticed the sweat on her skin and the heat in her muscles. Suddenly she burst into action, bringing up the blade from her lower right as before, but instead of flowing into the next strike from the other side, she reversed the momentum of her body entirely, pulled the lightsaber back and stepped forward for another high attack from the right side. For a moment, it looked as if she were going to lose her balance as she yanked herself from one side to the other. If one imagined that her opponent would have met the initial strike with his lightsaber, her weapon would have slid around it in a strange sort of arch. She would have suddenly ended up to his side and stabbing at him from there. It was completely the other side from where one would normally have expected her second attack from.

She deactivated her weapon again and turned to Coren. "You probably shouldn't imitate this, but it's useful to know about it. I understand the Sith are much more open to cultivating this sort of approach."

[member="Coren Starchaser"]​