Twice Exiled, Twice Redeemed

[jokemaster]

"All right, now we go for something harder."

 

He opened a box full of small training drones and grabbed a handful.

 

"Now you'll have to defend yourself against invisible enemies. Ready?"

[Writer]

Jana hesitated before nodding slowly.

[jokemaster]

"All right then."

 

He activated the drones and threw them into the air. As soon as they left his hand, they disappeared. He stood back, and watched.

[Writer]

After several minutes of work with the remotes, Jana managed to find them all. She'd been hit several times, but was now to the point where none of the remotes were hitting her, even after they'd moved. She could still keep track of where they were. One by one, she deflected their bolts back at them, deactivating them.

[jokemaster]

After all the drones were deactivated, Kelso picked them up.

 

"That's good. You're learning fast." He said. "Do you feel the difference now?"

[Writer]

Jana nodded wordlessly.

[jokemaster]

"Good. You're progressing well. Do you want a rest?"

[Writer]

"No," Jana answered quietly. "I'd best not."

[jokemaster]

Kelso smiled. That was the answer he'd been looking for.

 

"All right, let's see how fast you find them this time."

 

That time he grabbed two handfuls. He wanted to measure her progress.

[Writer]

After the first test, Jana found it significantly easier to locate the remotes. She'd deactivated all of them in just under two minutes, often catching two or three with the same deflected bolt as it would skim just over or just under or just around one and do the same with another before embedding itself in the third.

[jokemaster]

Kelso picked up the remotes again, and frowned.

 

"We're going to need to get that time down to under a minute."

[Writer]

"Yes, Master," Jana said obediently. "Again, then."

[jokemaster]

Kelso re-activated the drones, and stepped back to watch again.

[Vladimir-Vlada]

"Now, you see, the way Healing functions it is like a blessing from another person. You have to understand or feel the pain the person is experiencing, and you have to know that puring his or her emotions will help them heal. You have to focus on that wound. Let me demonstrate."

 

Kyle took of his metal glove that was attached to his armor. He pulled a little dagger from his belt and cut his hand a bit on th top side. He forwarded the hand to Yery.

 

"Try and heal it."

[Tysyacha]

Yery was horrified. She had seen injured people before--and she had often

been injured many times herself!--but never had she seen someone wound

himself on purpose in order to test her, to train her. She breathed hard.

 

"Blood doesn't make me feel faint," said Yery, "or at least not normally."

She saw the grimace on Kyle's face and felt a deep pain in her gut.

Indeed, she understood his pain, and she also understood how much

control and courage it must have taken Kyle to wound himself for her.

 

Yery put both of her hands on his, surrounding his palm in a cup of heat.

Silently asking the Force to guide her, Yery counted seconds. "One, one

thousand, two, one thousand..." She felt Kyle's blood start to get sticky.

[Vladimir-Vlada]

Kyle removed his hand and saw the wound form a sticky layer of blood. He watched it for a second, trying to sustain the pain that was released a few seconds ago, but instead of saying 'Ow' he shivered noticably.

 

"Good." commented Kyle and put his metal glove back on.

"Now we will see how good are you with stasis."

"The first thing you must know about stasis." began Kyle "Is to know on which parts of the body to focus on and put presure on. This will cause the person or animal to hold still, unable to move. Those parts of the body are like weak points: everyone has them and applying presure to them, affects the person entirely. You can locate those parts of the body by trying to feel it. It's no that hard."

Kyle spread his hands for a moment and put them behind his back.

"Try it on me and hold the presure for a few minutes. Just please don't do it for too long."

[Tysyacha]

Yery closed her eyes and focused on what she thought were Kyle's

'pressure points'. "The radial arteries," she thought to herself. "Five

seconds should do it, but what if I squeeze too hard?" She was afraid.

 

Then she remembered the words of the Jedi Code, taught to her only

a short time ago as part of her training: "There is no emotion, there is peace."

 

She reached out through the Force and squeezed, but gently. For five

seconds, Yery concentrated, hoping that Kyle wasn't just standing there

to encourage her. She hoped his hands were pinned, and not just resting.

[Vladimir-Vlada]

Kyle halted himself for a while and he thought that maybe he could move. But when he tried he couldn't, he couldn't move, speak or breath. After 5 seconds he caught his breath.

 

"Very good, Yery." complimented Kyle.

 

"Now let's see if you can release the Force and hold me tight for 10 seconds, but that you don't stand in one position. If you manage to make me hold still and come and hit me in torso, you have then imrpoved Stasis to a very high level. Try it."

[Tysyacha]

Yery squeezed Kyle once again, this time near his belly. It was

primarily the torso she wanted to keep still, and she knew the

solar plexus area of any individual was vulnerable. The young

Padawan counted to ten, by thousands as was legitimate, and

strode up to Kyle, slapping his belly with a not-very-hard punch.

 

"How was that?" she asked after releasing him. Then, revealing

a fear of hers about the Stasis power, she asked, "If I squeeze

too hard, or in anger like the Sith do, could this kill you, Master?"

[Vladimir-Vlada]

Kyle laughed and smiled.

"Nonsense. You didn't do anything wrong. Besides, I just showed you how to do it that's all." he said cleaning the dust off of his robes "And no, Force Stasis is not Force Crush or Choke. You can only hold the bones together; the individual only won't be able to move."

 

"Now." began Kyle "We will try and see how can you use burst of speed."

Kyle turned around and moved away a bit from Yery. He moved a part of his robes away and pulled out his white light sabre, turning around.

"Now initiate Force Speed and see if you can knock my light sabre out of my hand."

[Tysyacha]

Uggh. Force Speed. This, out of all tests, was the one Yery dreaded.

 

She had never been agile as a child, not being able to run and play as fast with

the other children her age. As a result, Yery had turned more to datapads,

learning as much as she could about the world around her and the Force.

 

Is this cheating? Yery whispered, "Dvukhsotniy!", and rushed forward.

[Vladimir-Vlada]

"No, it's not." said Kyle calmly while Yery rushed towards him.

He stepped with one leg backwards and slashed his light sabre to the left and blocked Yery's forward attack.

[Tysyacha]

Yery, her senses heightened by Kyle's block, whirled around and tried

to grab Kyle's lightsaber out of his left hand, but the weapon proved

elusive. She quickly released Stasis on his wrist, and the lightsaber fell.

 

The young Padawan picked it up, glad that at least something worked.

[Vladimir-Vlada]

Kyle was caught in great surprise at what he just experienced. How come I didn't think of that he thought. He then forwarded his hand and Yery gave him the lightsabre.

"Uh... Let's try now, without Force Speed."

 

He moved a few steps back and twirled the light sabre in clockwise circles; left, right and then he lowered himself to his right holding the sabre with his both hands.

[Tysyacha]

Yery rushed forward, but it was at this moment that Kyle realized Yery's "rush"

was more like a slow jog. All that the girl had to rely on now was the hidden

power in her wrists and the strength of her will. Would she pass this challenge?

 

Grab the metal part of the lightsaber, not the blade! Yery told herself.

She grabbed hold of the metal handle of Kyle's lightsaber, warm from its

Master's hands, and began to pull. And pull. And pull harder. She thought

that maybe Kyle had learned how to defend against her Stasis trick, but

if that were true, what could she do now? She thought she'd heard of a

Force Power that would pull an out-of-reach saber to a user, and she tried it.

 

It didn't work. She could feel the Force tugging toward her, but the saber

remained firmly in Kyle's hands. "Chyort, chyort," she grumbled. "Why

won't this work? I thought it was supposed to pull a lightsaber toward you."