Harry Potter and the Ocean Planet

[Cathul Thuku]

Cathul was quickly rising in prominence as a Witch trainer. Not only she was Governor of Azure, which was Clan Lok's main source of funding, she was also entertaining the notion of teaching Force-healing to many a Mandalorian Force-user. The Department of Healthcare took care of Force-screening where blood tests were called for any medically justified reason. Since there was no Force-nexus on Azure, there was no risk of false-positives induced by Force-nexuses, but Cathul had a rather peculiar apprentice coming in for today. Since the day she took care of [member="Asriel Dreemurr"]'s class on Solomahal Island, she would never suspect that her next student would be so deeply imbued by the dark side that she felt that a Sith Lord like Darth Banshee would have been a better fit to train him than she was. She took it upon herself to personally greet any and all apprentices that come to her. Azure's major satellite islands were peppered with public works projects, with IGR being a major contributor: social housing on Solomahal Island and a power plant on Codebreaker Island, making use of waste material.

"Welcome, new apprentice. Today you shall undertake basic Force training. Since your interest in the art of witchcraft is obvious, I shall train you in a few basic spells, as well as the art of operating a flying broomstick. Please take good care of the broomstick: it is a rental broomstick and you can start the engine by pressing the button at the end of the handle"

[member="Kiber Thaxton"]

 

[Kiber_Thaxton]

Kiber couldn't help but grin underneath his helmet. "A broomstick? I've been a bounty hunter for ten years Cathful, but, as always, I am up for trying new things," as he picked it up, he began thinking about his upcoming training; he was anxious to build upon his Light Side powers and become skilled in the Dathomir magic that he had heard about during his travels. But, somewhere deep down inside his Mandalorian soul was a hidden part of him that was aching to embrace the Dark Side, which would bring about the tightrope walk between light and dark.

"So, what is first on our agenda for today Cathul?" he asked her, as he inspected the broomstrick and wondered if there would ever be a day that it would come in handy.

[member="Cathul Thuku"]

 

[Cathul Thuku]

"That broomstick is there to supplement a jetpack, when you need to fly for longer periods than a jetpack will afford you to. It is lighter, and can fly at higher altitudes, but it is slower than a swoop. When fully retracted, you can strap it on a jetpack"

Cathul knows that her new apprentice had a foundation in a few spells: Force-push/pull, mind trick (at a basic level), Force-sense so she knows better than to cover them again - he probably already is using that on the field. She has the feeling that she should not re-teach things they already know, even though she is unsure as to whether he would be able to handle the physics behind these new spells Kiber came for. Probably should have been a condensed matter theorist if I had to do it all over again, she thought. As she got in position to use a broomstick, in the general direction of Codebreaker Island, Cathul is preparing the list of spells she needs to take out of her rather loaded mental spellbook: that's a lot to cover, and it was truly an introduction. She trusted him he would pick up the remainder on the field when he will actually use these things, much like she trusted herself enough to do such when she first learned spells other than Force-empathy and Force-alcohol.

"I think we have an idea of what you came for - six spells total. Pyrokinesis, cryokinesis, electric judgment, Force-refraction, Force-healing and finally Force-horror. The last one is usually a dark-sider's ability but if you understand how it works you no longer need the dark side of the Force to do it"

[member="Kiber Thaxton"]

 

[Kiber_Thaxton]

Kiber nodded, flicked on the broomstick and got into position to ride it. "They sound easy enough to do. And what other spells can be cast by using Dathomir magic? I've heard plenty of stories from old buddies of mine, who faced off against the Nightsisters..." he asked, intrigued.

[member="Cathul Thuku"]

 

[Cathul Thuku]

"Better not learn too many spells in one go, seven is already enough for today: Drain Knowledge is first. Any supplemental spells you will ask for will be taught at a later date"

Yes, Cathul could sense just how eager this new apprentice is. But for some reason, she senses that her new apprentice may not have the mental fortitude for more than that. If he wants to extract knowledge from other people, he could always visualize Cathul's brain as a computer. She's far from the best at Drain Knowledge but she can serve as a test subject for her apprentice to learn such power. Her memory is rather resistant, so it can take quite a beating in the Force before the memories are destroyed. She is regularly used as a Force-computer but for different things compared to Jessica, whom she knows is also used in that fashion by several users of Drain Knowledge. To Cathul it does not mean that their targets would hold advanced medical knowledge, that they could necessarily defend themselves well against such a power. That's all she ever used Drain Knowledge for: to copy some memories from another person into hers. Yet she was incredulous when she heard about Jessica complaining that she was used as a computer in the Force or otherwise complaining about being used by other Force-users using her to do high-level cognitive functions in their stead, a few years back. Drain Knowledge was the medium. As they flew to Codebreaker Island...

"Just visualize my brain as if it was a computer terminal: try looking for some knowledge that would be useful to learn any of the other six spells you want out of me"

[member="Kiber Thaxton"]

 

[Kiber_Thaxton]

Kiber flew alongside Cathul and nodded at her suggestion. "I will give a try," the Mando flew close next to the Twi'lek and he placed a gloved hand gently onto the base of her tchun lekku and began his search for knowledge about the six spells he would be taught. Darting and diving through her brain and along its pathways, the Mando eventually found what he was looking for. "Aha, I've found what I need in regards to the spells Cathul," he said with a hint of satisfaction in his voice, as Codebreaker Island, their final destination, came closer and closer.

[member="Cathul Thuku"]

 

[Cathul Thuku]

"Here's your chance to actually cast the spells you just learned using Drain Knowledge"

What she knew was that the frequency at which one was targeted by Drain Knowledge as she knew it increased drastically the smarter a person was. The witch version of Drain Knowledge required a person to What the Sith called Drain Knowledge was something more akin to Mind Shard than what she taught Kiber. She would arrive at the construction site of the waste-fueled power plant, which also doubled as a desalinization plant and where the residue salt would then be packaged for off-world sale. The waste-fueled power plant was getting their inner containment shell built, where the main reactor was being assembled with another steam turbine not unlike the Sabrinas mounted on the newer generation of Silver Jedi carriers. But Cathul would not have Kiber weld steam turbine components or in place: she'd rather use her Force-push as a crane and then have Kiber weld the durasteel beam in place, using pyrokinesis.

[member="Kiber Thaxton"]

 

[Kiber_Thaxton]

Kiber stood in front of the power plant and cast his eye over it; memories of battles, and a certain kidnapping, came rushing back. Why did all of his toughest assignments end up at power plants of all places? Why couldn't he battle a slaver at a farm or in a club for once?

"So you want me to put this beam in place like a human welding torch?" there was always a first time for everything and this was no different than the time he was taught how to use the traditional Twi'lek Lyaer'tsa.

[member="Cathul Thuku"]

 

[Cathul Thuku]

"Yes, that would do nicely - pyrokinesis can be used for something other than just welding stuff into place, once you have a feel for how it works"

Finally, Cathul had found a way to teach those things without recourse to her condensed matter knowledge. At first she was all too tempted to talk about the root-mean-square speed of the target or its vibrational frequencies. But perhaps that was a function of her being targeted by Drain Knowledge (the variety Jessica complained about all the time, five years back, for which she came to Azure, which was found to be different from the Drain Knowledge the Sith practiced). How Cathul treated any given spell was: understand how it worked, to the best of your ability, and then train in it. That included pyrokinesis and cryokinesis. She will always remember her first patient on which she used Force-heal: broken bones, used the Force to grow a splint and later asked to immobilize said patient. To Cathul (and to Jessica as well) all too many people misunderstood the mechanisms of Force-powers, which leads to their misuse.

[member="Kiber Thaxton"]

 

[Kiber_Thaxton]

Kiber watched close as Cathul used Force Push to move the rather heavy durasteel beam into its proper place, and after taking a deep breath and focusing solely on the task at hand, he began.

A red hot line slowly moved down one end of the beam and held it firmly in place. Moving his focus to the other end of the beam, he started to weld a straight line down the other end of the durasteel beam. And a few minutes later, the job was completed.

"Hopefully I didn't do too bad for a beginner," he chuckled underneath the helmet.

[member="Cathul Thuku"]

 

[Cathul Thuku]

"Good. I take that you have done your job well enough with Drain Knowledge and, from there, pyrokinesis. Next in line is cryokinesis. Some of the organic workers would appreciate a few ice cubes into their drinks"

No longer able to provide medical care as she used to, after she fethed up with one of the more powerful Force-using patients in her career, Cathul proceeds to help out the people of Azure in different ways. She realizes that she could be more productive with the Force as a warlock or sorceress than as a doctor. That she truly should have been a condensed matter or an AMO theorist. Witches were separated in 10 categories, or so she wrote for the Star Tours Guide to Force Specialties: doctor, warlock, sorcerer, seer, lorekeeper, sniper, ace, alchemist, illusionist, knight. Cathul prepares a grid of ice cube molds, containing about 1 fluid ounce apiece, whereby they would be frozen for employees' enjoyment, while Kiber would prepare to cast another spell on the ice cube mold. She estimates that an ice cube mold that size would take as much energy on the wizard's part to do as the welding of the beam had.

"Just pretend that the ice cube mold is a freezer"

[member="Kiber Thaxton"]

 

[Kiber_Thaxton]

Kiber stood over the mold, held his hand over it and began to focus. At first, the water began to ripple as he used the Force, and then it began to glaze over and freeze. After much more concentration, and determination, the ice cubes were formed.

"There we go - all done," Kiber replied, feeling pleased with his progress through the varied magic spells that he was being taught.

[member="Cathul Thuku"]

 

[Cathul Thuku]

"These are some ice cubes the organic workers will surely take for drinks"

Cathul was no longer a practicing healthcare professional; yet she knew that, under the heat of Azure, at this time of the year, organics sometimes wanted frozen drinks or frozen desserts. Azure was inhabitable by virtue of intense greenhouse effects, much more so than on typical oceanic planets, that would make life on rogue planets impossible otherwise. But Cathul sensed that the wizard had blaster powerpacks running low. So, rather than to bore him about Maxwell's equations, let alone when used as a chain, she'd rather ask him to recharge the blaster powerpack using Electric Judgment. At least he'd know what Electric Judgment could be used for and he'll get a significant measure of practice once he goes back into the fray and fight the toughest outlaws of the galaxy. With new spells he mustn't have void stones or else he won't have any magic left in him to fight with it.

"Electric Judgment is another spell you may wish to use, subject to the limitations of electricity conductivity. Duraplast is more resistant to electricity than beskar, for example. Try to recharge your blaster powerpack using it: visualize the electricity filling the blaster powerpack"

[member="Kiber Thaxton"]

 

[Kiber_Thaxton]

Kiber was amazed at Cathul's much stronger use of the Force - his weapons were low on power, so he gripped the powerpacks and began to visualize his weapons becoming recharged and ready for use once again during one of his many bounty hunts.

Slowly but surely, he could sense the power levels returning to their usual state and the electricity flowing through his fingertips into the packs. This would definitely come in handy when he was facing off with a horde of slavers, who had him cornered at a slave auction - he would surely have the edge with being able to recharge and reload faster.

"Wow, that was an interesting experience to say the least Cathul," he could still feel the slight tingle of electricity crackling in his fingers.

[member="Cathul Thuku"]

 

[Cathul Thuku]

"I'm not called the Radar of Mandalore for nothing. I know beginners would, until they acquire more power, be best advised to use EJ just for recharging their own weapons - it takes more power to zap living targets using Electric Judgment than to recharge a blaster or a lightsaber"

Although Cathul was noted all around Mandalorian space for her skill at using Force Sense, even having more skill than some Alor'e Councillors, for her to earn that nickname of Radar of Mandalore was a rather recent thing. The next topic would be of everyday use to a bounty hunter, a Witch Sniper as she envisioned he would become. Force-cloak. While the AMO theorist in her would say, go tell him about refraction indices, and what they mean in relation to Force-cloak, and how does that overlap with condensed matter, she would refrain from doing that. After all, she knew a lot more about AMO, or condensed matter, than the average Witch or (ex-)healthcare professional. As if she absorbed the contents of upper-division undergraduate stat-mech, QM and E&M textbooks, and even graduate-level ones about condensed matter or AMO physics, alongside the QFT textbook, done at Jessica's urging back in the day. While Cathul would use Force-push to put another beam into place, and use pyrokinesis to weld it once in position, she kept her Force-eye open for any sign of Kiber disappearing: if he does, then she knows he made it work.

"In combat you may wish to use Force-cloak for tactical advantages. At first you won't be able to stay cloaked for long but as you gain more skill and power, you can stay cloaked for longer periods. Just pretend you are an air current for the time being"

[member="Kiber Thaxton"]

 

[Kiber_Thaxton]

Kiber had tried Force cloaking before, under the tutelage of his mother, but no matter how hard he tried, it never turned out well. Third time is a charm they say, so he wanted to make it work this time and pay off.

Taking in deep breaths, the Mandalorian concentratred like never before to try and bend the waves of light and sound around his body, rendering him invisible to Cathul, if only briefly, to see if he had what it took to master this most unusual Light Side power.

After some time, he opened his eyes and looked to Cathul to see if she was staring in his direction; she was and had a smile on her face, so it must have worked. "So eventually Cathul, do you think I would I be able to cloak myself for an extended period, such as during a mission?"

[member="Cathul Thuku"]

 

[Cathul Thuku]

"How long is extended to you as a bounty hunter? From there how much practice is actually necessary will be determined"

As Cathul sees Kiber's refraction index go back to normal, after about thirty seconds of invisibility (much like when she first tried to change her refraction index), she gives a few more explanations and warnings to her new apprentice about Force-healing, either on the self or on other people. Because Cathul feels that apprentices must not misuse their power, lest they fall prey to it. At the same time, duracrete began to be poured where the duet each welded beams into place.

"For the next one, if there is anything that hurts on you, first find out where it hurts and second, if you can identify whether it is about bones, muscle or other flesh, then visualize said injury being grown back. Remember: healing on yourself, while certainly useful on the field, is something that requires a good knowledge of one's own body, and also it may take time to heal. Force-healing can help heal faster but do not expect near-instant healing every single time"

That was one mistake she saw so many make, regardless of how much Force-power they have. While she could no longer be considered a baat'kaysh, no more than she is a baar'ur, she heard all too many students back on Azure under her special Force-healing training program when she still was some baar'ur, want all their cases to be treated in a few minutes, when even she herself as Governor of Azure was handed the most severe cases when conventional medicine failed. Even her back then (before that patient removed nearly all ability for her to perform Force-healing on people other than herself by a generous application of beatings and dark-sided Force-powers) she found that cases severe enough to require direct gubernatorial intervention can sometimes take forever and she had her shares of close calls back in the time where she spammed Force-heal to save Azure (and hence the clan) money: a Neimoidian suffering from brainworm rot type C, another case of C5H4 on a Mirialan, to name those two that took the longest. They each took about 12 hours to cure, and required about half again as long to rest and sleep afterward. She was lucky no cases that other Force-healers on Azure would be unable to handle occured in each case.

[member="Kiber Thaxton"]

 

[Kiber_Thaxton]

Kiber rubbed his shoulder. "I think I tore my bicep when I was wrestling that Twi'lek bounty hunter for credits in Coruscant," he placed his left hand tightly onto his bicep and then began to visualize it completely healing itself and returning to full function.

Gripping slightly, he concentrated and felt it slowly but surely coming back to normal. The bicep reconnected to the nerve endings, and to the skeleton. After a few more minutes it felt healed, so Kiber swung his arm in a circle several times - there was no pain whatsoever.

"So, has there ever been a time when someone has Force-healed and it didn't go exactly as planned Cathul?" he asked her, watching as the island's power station was being constructed nearby.

[member="Cathul Thuku"]

 

[Cathul Thuku]

"When it does go awry it's often a function of how severe the illness is vs the power of the caster, and most of the time it's the caster biting much more than they can chew, if you will. But there should not be problems so long as you're not trying to cure too severe cases with only limited power to act on it. I no longer do that, because Azure's public finances have stabilized, and that there are now a few Force-healers doing that in my stead, but even when I used Force-healing on a daily basis I had to treat terminal cases of cancer, patients with deadly viruses, and all manner of medical conditions where you save patients at the gates of death. These kinds of things take forever to use Force-healing on compared to your torn bicep. Heart attacks, in comparison, are much easier to do because all you do is to remove a blood clot or fix coronary arteries"

Cathul has always been one to spam Force-healing while in office, at least as long as she was able to. Until Stardust removed all her ability to do it on people other than herself, with generous applications of beatings and dark-sided Force-powers. It seemed that, especially in her early years in office, she spent more time Force-healing people than actually running the planet. Now she focuses on the business of running both the planet and Clan Lok's main business, IGR Brokerage, for which she wanted to get closer to the Alliance. Meanwhile additional duracrete is being poured nearby.

"Terminal cases of cancer, patients with deadly viruses and other things of that order of magnitude require much longer sustained usage of the Force than a muscular tear. That's what I mean when I say that you shouldn't expect near-instant healing every single time"

[member="Kiber Thaxton"]

 

[Kiber_Thaxton]

Kiber nodded. "I will try not to overexert myself with Force healing," he replied, wondering what the consequences might be if he tried to heal someone who had a terminal illness - although he was a fearless bounty hunter, he was rather kindhearted and helped anyone he could.

"For example, if I did try to heal someone who was severely injured, would my Force levels drop and would I have to replenish them?" this would definitely be a disadvantage in a battle or during a hunt, leaving him vulnerable to attack.

[member="Cathul Thuku"]