The young woman thought fast, and Tirdarius could tell that she wasn't used to what he was doing: the expression on her face said it all. It wasn't surprising: although he had known a few illusionists and masters of mental manipulation during his years with the Sith, he knew those spheres to be unpopular among those wearing the black. Requiring too much discipline, creativity that goes beyond merely the sadistic, and ultimately too subtle for many. Whether that was true for Tarika, he did not know, but nor was he going to question her on it. We have so many arts to learn and master. One cannot learn them all.
Tirdarius approved of her response: attack into open space, perhaps guessing that he might have remained in that spot where he had vanished. It was a good choice: if he had not moved, rather seeking to play to her paranoia, he would have to choose between being decapitated by her lightsaber or dropping his technique in order to defend himself. Clever, but sadly only a functional strategy if I stay put. Although he had struggled to come to his feet and limp away, dragging his still injured leg, feeling a weakening around the kneecap, inflammation that was not there before, a white flare of agony surging through it each time he tried to put any weight upon it. That might need a bacta tank.
Now he was a little off to the right of where he had been a few moments ago, moving slightly closer to the young woman. There were options here, plenty of them: frankly, knowing she could not penetrate his illusion meant his simplest approach would be to walk up to her and stab her in the back before she realised he was there. Simple, subtle, but utterly uncivilised. This wasn't supposed to be a fight to the death, either: just an opportunity to hone their skills, one Force User to another. And there was little honour in taunting her with skills she could not counter and then leading her to a humiliating defeat. Instead, let us treat this as a learning opportunity.
"Your lightning would have been the better weapon to detect me", he observed cooly, projecting his voice outward through use of telepathy, eshewing verbal conversation and reverting to what his Master had first taught him decades ago: the ability to communicate mind to mind, projecting images, feelings and, as his skills had advanced, even a sense of words he intended to convey. "A lightsaber is focused, but requires merely that one not be where it is going. A Force-based attack can only be countered with use of the Force, and that will push any Force User into dropping their illusions, since maintaining two techniques at once is both difficult and exhausting," he informed her.
Exhaling a deep breath, he projected his mind further: first visualising himself, limp and all, then shaping the Force energies around them, moulding it into similar form, giving it shape and sense, all natural facsimiles of the person he envisioned within his mind's eye. Two of them arrayed around her, one behind, one in front. And then himself, the original form from which the others had been created, removing the cloak with that same shimmering wave with which the illusions had appeared.
"You are taught that the Force has a will of it's own, but that it can bend to one sufficiently focused and powerful, yes?", he asked, mind-to-mind so that he did not give away his true nature by virtue of not having to synchronise lip movements with his two illusions. "So it is here: you can shape energies to whatever form you can effectively envision, with sufficient practice. As you shaped the Force into electrical energy to strike me, so I can shape it to bend light away from me, or coax it to play with your mind, letting you see what I desire." All three shrugged with identical motion. "It provokes some interesting questions, does it not? What is real? Can you trust your own senses, or can they, too, be fooled?"
A faint smile curved the features of the three Tirdarius' surrounding Tarika, a touch amused, perhaps even slightly mocking in their own way, though he intended her no insult. It had been a while since he had found a captive audience with whom to test his skills, and so far she was proving fairly receptive. She hadn't underestimated him or become sullen when he had thrown something unusual at her, rather adapting her own technique to try and counter it. A quick mind, then, one that works well with unexpected challenges. He'd have to be similarly creative, so as to ensure an appropriately mind-expanding experience for her.
"Now...which of us is real? Three enemies, but only one can truly harm you," he projected. All three raised a hand then, gathering energies forth from the Force, then channeling it to their fingertips the way that Tarika had done when this challenge had first started, and a blast of Lightning burst forth, firing their way across the gap separating them from her, standing in the centre. Unless her Tutaminis was very effective indeed, she'd need to choose one to block, and only one could be stopped, since the other two were mere illusion. So now we see how acute her senses truly are, he reflected.