Taking The Fifth (Percy)

[Teynara Jeralyr]

The lights dimmed, barely sufficient to illuminate the room within, the training quarters were relatively unoccupied, given the lateness of the hour. Many sought exhausted sleep or restless meditation at such a time, but that was for those beings who felt themselves to be an extension of darkness in the daylight, the young who invariably sought to make their mark when all others could see it. A vanity, of course, but such was ever the domain of youth.

Age had long since robbed him of the desire to concern himself with such little victories. He had lived his life in darkness, perhaps for longer than he could effectively remember, even if memory of that fateful moment when he had first embraced it remained clear and strong. Life was made of such indelible moments, and that could not be erased. To walk in the late hours, to find strength and clarity in the darkness: this was the Sith way, though more and more often it felt that the others embraced it only as a means to an end, rather than recognising it for what it was: a part of oneself that could not be avoided, and would kill if left untouched.

Sitting, waiting, the Sith found it hard not to allow his contemplations to bend in such a way: such had often been his thoughts of late, reflecting upon the darkness and his place within it. To remain among other Sith, once often had to have such perspective: the highly-individualistic, ambitious, often paranoid Force users had always struggled to work together, to embrace the order they sought to impose upon the galaxy. The Sith taught that, through strength, order would come, peace established and maintained through threat of overwhelming force. Within their own ranks, of course, this meant that each must test their strength and prove themselves - alas, the contradiction inherently ensured that they turned upon each other. Thus, our ranks deplete more through contest with each other than through the challenges that the galaxy offers us. The irony was unescapable.

Tirdarius cared not for any of that now: his role was to teach, to pass on understanding and perhaps moderate the extremism within the ranks that often led to such waste. Even now, sitting in the darkness, breathing softly and calmly, he was but waiting again to fulfil that role. A student had emerged with a desire to learn, and he could do little other than indulge it. As is often true with our students, a risk must be taken. If this one failed to learn, she might find herself paying for that failure, although perhaps not in the way she might expect. Death, after all, teaches nothing to the one suffering it. The only lessons learned are by the survivors.

Whether that would be necessary yet remained to be seen. The beauty of working with new people was that they often had the capacity to surprise you. Tirdarius certainly hoped that might be the case here - if she did not surprise him, the reverse would certainly not prove true.

And he did so hate being disappointed.

 

[Percy Imura]

The repeated sounds of footsteps, plus the light thud of a bow being leaned against the wall, signified the arrival of Penelope Imura. She was wearing her grey shirt and brown pants, leather boots being the only fanciful thing about her (aside her hair and eyes.) 'Percy' looked pretty pathetic, being so small. However, a strong sensitivity to the force, alongside the Imura blood in her thin body, proved she had hidden talent. She already had her lightsaber in her hand, ready and raring to train.

"Master [member="Tirdarius"]," Percy acknowledged her mentor for the evening, "You're training me in one of the form five variants, Shien, right?" The redhead paused for a moment before continuing, "I have done my research before coming here, but all the knowledge in the world means nothing compared to experience."

A smile crept across her face, she was nervous about this training session, but eager. Eager to gain more power. Shien was a near perfect lightsaber style, the way Percy saw it. Only an actual practice session could tell though. She was thankful to Tirdarius for doing this.

 

[Teynara Jeralyr]

The arrival of the trainee was perhaps underwhelming, all things considered. But one must be wary of assuming that appearance is relevant to strength, the Sith Lord mused, observing the young woman carefully. She was small, far smaller than he was himself, but this in itself was not a disadvantage. Likely to be faster than she is strong, but it is her mind that will matter here. He had known many Sith over the decades he had been counted among their ranks - the best of them has valued the power of their minds over that of their bodies. Whether she will be one of those yet remains to be seen. He would not, however, underestimate her.

He had to raise an eyebrow at her assertion that she had researched what she had come to learn: he had always felt that the Archives would offer little true understanding to such a physical art. As with many things taught among the Sith, there was no substitute for experience. And she will have that soon enough, if she has the skill to learn what she needs.

"Good evening," he offered, his voice quiet but nonetheless firm, his grey eyes watching the young woman with undisguised curiosity. Knowing the prejudices of the others, he felt surprised that she had been allowed to progress as far as she had. There must be something of value about her, he reasoned inwardly. Perhaps her strength in the Force is sufficient to give others reason to overlook her small size. "I hope your research has adequately prepared you for the rigours that such training requires," he added calmly.

Standing up, his height was revealed as being more than a full foot taller than hers, but for the exercises he had in mind, such a thing would not hold much relevance. Besides, there was no guarantee that the girl would not meet opponents bigger than herself in true combat - if she could not cope with such now, it would be better for her to surrender her lightsaber now and join the ranks of those failed Force Users deemed unable to join the ranks of the Sith, instead relegated to positions of lesser service, where their talents might be used, but no true power would ever flow through their hands.

"Shien is not a simple art to master in truth," he remarked, moving to bridge the gap between them. "It requires more than simple skill with a lightsaber: it is your attunement to the Force that will be tested most." There were many practitioners of the Form who never moved past the basics, believing themselves skilled, but lacking true mastery. "Thus, it will be this we shall test first. Activate your lightsaber."

Stepped away from her, he moved over to a small table upon which were set several stacks of small ceramic disks, stacked on top of each other. They were often used for blaster practice: fired into the air, they would have to be shot with precision as a means of testing a person's ability to track and and accurately hit a moving target. The girl would be tested in similar fashion, but her role here would be to dodge or effectively strike each disc as it was fired at her. Blaster shots would have been similarly effective, but he had always preferred more traditional methods.

The Sith Lord raised a hand, palm outwards, pressing it against one stack of discs and sending them firing towards her in a flurry of telekinetic energy. Each disc was randomly directed, projecting towards the young woman at varying height and speeds, requiring her to use her senses and lightsaber to counter the attack directed towards her. This is just the beginning.

 

[Percy Imura]

The girl obliged, activating one of the two, red blades in a reversed grip. She caught on rather quickly to the exercise even before it started. This was actually Percy's first time training in any form of melee combat, aside her randomly picking up a table knife and giving a Corusant thug some facial scars to remember (she still had that knife on her.) She was already a dedicated archer, so when she saw something that wasn't modern blaster fire thrown at her, the child realised it was more than her knowledge on Shien alone that would help her.

For the first minute of the exercise, she dodged the disks. Her body being small as it was, it was easy for even assailants to miss her! However, the more she got into it, the more she started to use her lightsaber instead. Slipping into the correct stance smoothly, she was doing well in the reverse grip varient. When she started catching the fact she may have been getting tired though, she slowed down and activated her second blade on her saber, entering the forward varient (which was a lot like Djem-So) instead. She made a wall of defense, keeping dodging to the minimal, and used her double bladed lightsaber as a force field. Nothing slipped past it. Not even once.

She was starting to get frustrated on the length of this exercise, knowing that more were likely coming up. She was trying not to lose patience. Even if she was training in an aggressive saber form, and even if the Sith were notorious for being hot-headed, the last thing she needed was to lose a cool head. Stay calm, stay focused on the task at hand... she reminded herself as she deflected one disk after the other, trying her best not to get sloppy - or hit.


[member="Tirdarius"]

 

[Teynara Jeralyr]

Though much of his concentration was devoted to telekinetically firing the ceramic discs towards the Acolyte, Tirdarius nonetheless observed her progress with a degree of pleasure. She was well trained, certainly - her motions fluid and feral, her small frame moving quickly but with the aggression of someone bigger and stronger. The use of the dual saber was an interesting choice - not one that he would have made, of course, but it was appropriate for a more aggressive style. Provided that it doesn't come back to bite her. Such a weapon could be tricky to wield, and just as dangerous to the user as to those it was used against.

Ceasing his attack, lowering his hand to his side so as to make it apparent that the girl was to receive a little respite, he paused, watching her, noting the shattered ceramic pieces now spread upon the floor around her - fragments of her defensive strategies, each contact of her lightsaber burning glowing holes on the clay-coloured discs, disintegrating some, shattering others. That she hadn't found herself cut by the fragments was either providence or an indication of her own skill. It was clear enough that she was no novice with a blade.

Not that he hadn't picked up weaknesses in her technique: the style she had chosen was likely to exhaust you if it was used for long periods of time. The weapon choice required broader arm motions, even on a single-blade setting, since the hilt was longer and had more weight to it than a smaller traditional lightsaber. Tirdarius could achieve much the same defense as she had performed merely with short wrist motions, positioning the lightsaber at the desired position with little more than a simple wrist pronation. With the larger weapon, her stamina would be quickly exhausted - perhaps a reason she had chosen a more aggressive means of protecting herself, to end the battle quickly, before she succumbed to fatigue.

"Your skills are adequate at this point," he observed, high praise, considering his preference for allowing people to rely on their own analysis, rather than being dependent on compliments from another. To speak of excellence often offered an excuse for complacency, and among the Sith, complacency was death. "You waste your energies in this fashion, however. Perhaps it would have been better to attack me, thus stopping the flow of the discs. A Shien practitioner must think in lateral fashion: while a defensive form emphasises preventing harm to yourself, your focus must be upon putting your enemy out of action. Otherwise they remain a threat to you, and that cannot abide."

It was, perhaps, this reason why Shien remained a popular choice among Sith: as with Djem-So, the emphasis would always be upon destroying those who dared attack or oppose. The inherent difference was in how each variant of the Form achieved this: Djem-So focused on being a destructive force, every movement an aggressive attack, every step, every blow designed to overwhelm, overpower and dominate. Shien was a more subtle art: it was focused upon using the opponent's own strengths and turning them into a weakness, killing them through their own resistance. And so we teach the ultimate lesson: to oppose the Sith is to destroy yourself.

"Shien is not a form of the body: you have learned how to fight, to turn yourself into a weapon of war," he continued conversationally, stepping away from the table from which he had launched the discs. "The art you have chosen requires you to think your way through battle: to seek out the weak spots in what your opponent does, and to exploit them. What critical point can you turn their strengths into their end?"

He shrugged, as if to say it didn't matter. Shien was always about perception, about recognising the ebb and flow of combat and knowing when to pick your moment. The form had often been remarked as excellent for reflection: a blaster bolt fired at you simply offered you the weapon of your enemy's demise. Had they failed to fire, their life would have remained theirs. By taking offensive action, the role of the Sith was to end them.

"Think now: I attacked you with those disks," he noted, moving closer to her, ignoring the lightsaber in her hand as though she held a flower in her open hand. "How might you have turned that against me? How might you have turned such a weapon to your advantage?"

[member="Percy Imura"]