A Thorn for a Butcher Bird

[Enyo Typhos]

[member="Maris Fero"]

Enyo watched Maris try out the lightsabre-pike and fumble a bit. It was evidently a weapon she had not used before, which was why she was being introduced to it. Thus her motions were less practiced and lacked the fluidity she prided herself on. "I am aware also. That is why I chose it for you first," Enyo responded flatly. "You must be adaptive and be able to use a range of weapons, not just the ones you choose." After this clearly very motivating speech, she picked up a lightsabre-pike of her own. "Watch." Evidently she had a bunch of weapons lying around. Enyo liked to collect weapons like other people collected Pokemons, but this one digresses. Holding the weapon's long hilt with both hands, she activated it. Igniting with the trademark snap-hiss, it produced a long, orange beam. She transitioned into a guard position.

The door opened, and a droid stepped in. It resembled the training droids commonly used by the Jedi for their Padawans to spar with, and carried an ignited, regular-sized lightsabre. Moving quickly, the droid crossed the distance to Enyo, slashing at her. Being a machine, it could move a lot faster than a human. Enyo met its powerful strikes with her pike. With her superior reach, she could easily parry or outright block many attacks that came her way, keeping her foe at bay.

When the droid stepped in fast and cut at Enyo's head, she blocked. The droid chopped again, its humming blade sweeping towards Enyo's side. Fast, but another block, as the Terminatrix exploited her reach to keep the machine back. The droid's next attack came from the opposite side. Enyo parried and riposted, thrusting the tip of her pike at the droid's head. The droid ducked, the blade scorching its shoulder as it passed over its body, and moved in close. Guessing its intent, Enyo pulled back. Her weapon met the strike in a surprisingly fluid motion, but then the droid swung a feint at her neck, before twisting its wrists and landing a jab on Enyo'd mid-section. The Cyborg anticipated its intent half a second too late. The lightsabre cut through her shirt with ease, burning fabric. Where it met flesh ever so briefly, synthflesh was burnt away, revealing metal. Still, Enyo's expression remained as emotionless as ever. No sound escaped her throat.

They clashed again, and she countered, going on the offensive to put pressure on the droid with a series of thrusts and the occasional slash. The droid charged and she shoved its blade away and the tip of her pike went midway between the droid's neck and shoulder joint. It sheared through the frame and the chest. Circuitry sparked and shorted out. Sparks flew and acrid smoke emanated from the machine. It dropped the lightsabre as its hand controls died. Enyo took the droid's head.

"When someone is charging you, brace your weapon and cut them to bits. When they attack, use your reach. You can slash and stab with this weapon, but you will mostly employ the latter, using the tip and the top quarter of it," Enyo explained. "Now you try." She made a gesture with her hand. The energies of the Force flowed through her, and suddenly the broken droid began to reassemble. Right before Maris' eyes, the droid regained its life and arose, once again holding its lightsabre. "Low power," the Cyborg ordered and the droid adjusted its weapon's power setting.

 

[Maris Fero]

Watching Enyo’s demonstration made aspects of the new technique Maris was supposed to be learning clearer, but the speed and fluidity of the movements of droid and cyborg were dazzling. Clearly, the training automaton had been well programmed, it’s various blows and strikes testing even her master’s defence. The advantages and disadvantages of the exotic longer weapon were revealed over the course of the shortlived duel.

Maris almost vocalised a gasp as she watched the training droid’s lightsaber eradicate a strip of Enyo’s shirt, her perspective perfectly situated to observe the destruction of her Master’s synthetic flesh at the energy sword’s searing touch. Enyo, of course, showed no sign of discomfort or even annoyance on those features.

The flurry of activity continued as Enyo Typhos went on the offensive, and in moments the droid was silenced, impaled on the tip of Enyo’s spear and then beheaded an instant later.

The youth practised the demonstrated stance, again the woman’s uncanny talent for motion and mimicry allowed for a reasonable facsimile of the art her mistress had displayed. She braced the weapon, feeling the strength of the stance as she aped the thrusts and slashes she had observed, still unnatural in her hands but no longer as alien as they had first seemed. The top quarter of the weapon would have to do the work.

“Now you try,” Enyo had said, and with the manipulation of the force she summoned Maris watched Enyo reconstruct the robotic attacker.

“Would the other three quarters survive the impact of the sabre’s energy field?” she asked, looking at the shaft of the weapon with doubt obvious in the tone of her question.

The risen droid did not wait for a reply to her question and adjusted its sabre to a lower-powered thrum before moving to close on Maris. For her part, the student pointed the tip of the new weapon toward the reforged automaton and tracked its approach. The droid matched her hesitant movements for a moment and Maris briefly considered whether or not Enyo had designed the thing to mock her deliberately, before assuming that it was more likely that part of the construct’s design would observe and analyse its opponent. Maybe it was even advanced enough to adjust its own performance to match hers?

With a motion bereft of any forewarning of flesh the droid darted left and offered a testing slash to gain ground on the apprentice’s position. Maris recognised the intent and wheeled in mirrored motion to the opponent, falling back to maintain her distance and touching the energy blades to push the droids aside harmlessly. The machine used the motion on her blade to push the spearing tip further and tried close on the right next, but the youth mirrored again and held her relative position, despite losing ground overall.

She thrust, and the droid responded with an easy parry, though it came no closer to letting her impale it as Enyo had. Another thrust from the youth and the droid made its attack, pushing the blade aside and stepping to force the weapon back. Maris struggled to match the motion and lost more ground, footing failing and barely holding the attack back.

“How do I attack?” she hissed in frustration, “I just keep losing ground,”

The bubbling disquiet in the woman was becoming palpable in her aura once again; the wish to see the dummy crushed by her will was ever more real.

[member="Enyo Typhos"]

 

[Enyo Typhos]

Maris Fero

One useful thing about being a Terminatrix was...patience. After all, Enyo had nothing but time. So she waited, observed and eventually provided commentary. "Don't use it like you would a sword," the Cyborg spoke. "Your advantage is your reach. Let your foe charge you. The machine cannot attack you when you have the pike active without being skewered. When you're on the offensive, you must use that to your advantage. Use stabs and slashes at parts of the droid to take it down. You're small, so you can literally undercut it."