Star Wars Roleplay: Chaos

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First Steps into a Larger World

[member="Joon"]

It was a new day, and it was high time that Joon began her first lesson. Taeli wondered how the girl had liked her new quarters and the availability to obtain whatever she might require if she so desired something. Meditating on the hidden sub-level that doubled as Taeli's training area, she sent a message to Uleema to bring Joon to her and provide her with the necessary keycard to make the lift stop at sub-level nine.

She was curious what the clone and former apprentice of Ayra might want to learn first, now that she had time to rest and get her head in order. It would prove to be an interesting lesson regardless of what the subject would be, and there may very well be tangent lessons tossed in if need be.
 
This was a whole world of confusion. Jon had never felt more alone in her life, and she knew, one day, she would have to return to Sojourn to face the ghosts of the past that held her back. Right now, however, she was in a place where she felt like she could breathe a little more.

Of course, she didn’t find it stimulating to be in the company of a Jedi Master – albeit one who didn’t seem to be a typical Jedi – or under watch from those guards. She was, after all, a kitten amongst a flock of birds.

Joon had however enjoyed the facilities provided for her to have a wash, to freshen up and compose herself. She sat looking out of the window across the plaza when her escort came to go to the sub-level. The clone followed, saying nothing, looking at nobody. She would talk to Taeli and Taeli alone.

After some word of instruction and a quick security frisk, Joon was on her way down with only the clothes on her back and the keycard in hand. She looked up as the readout counted down to the Level 9 stop, and silently the doors parted and a blast of comfortable cool air hit her, along with silence, bar some noise up ahead.

This seemed like an underground cavern, at least on initially arriving it did. It just confused Joon more as to where she actually was now in regards to the complex, but she walked on, tapping the card in hand as she went the only way the path led her. To what? She didn’t know.

[member="Taeli Raaf"]
 
[member="Joon"]

As Joon walked into the chamber, her eyes would adjust to the low level of light that suffused the chamber. It was a wide open room with support pillars dotted around it that served both as a foundation and also as a home for concealed Reaver droids if sparring or security was needed. The room was mainly sparse of any other furnishings, but a small desk was at the back of the chamber with a chair and data terminal. Also resting upon it was the lightsaber that had been confiscated from Joon upon her arrival. Taeli was meditating in the center of the room, various datapads floating in the space around her.

"If you're wondering where you are, we are currently on a hidden sublevel under the company that is only known to a few beings," Taeli said without opening her eyes. "I come down here for training occasionally, or if I need some peace and quiet from the day to day grind of running my company. I'm sure you can imagine how running a company spanning multiple worlds and operations can be rather busy, but then your former Master only focused her operations on one world."

Taeli opened her eyes, the datapads forming a neat pile on the floor as she did so.

"Did you find your accommodations to your liking?" she asked, getting to her feet. "I wasn't sure what your personal tastes might be so I had Uleema prepare some basic quarters. We can change them to what you want in the future."
 
Joon squinted a little, slowing her pace as she adjusted to the light and took everything in around her; the cavernous surroundings, the mechanical enforcers, the terminals - it reminded her of Duro and the Imperial set-up.

Master Raaf was in the centre of it all, looking in control without even breaking a sweat. She was composed and at peace, more than she'd ever seen Ayra at. She took a few steps forwards, hands behind her back.

"No, no, thank you," she said. "I mean, yes - it was perfect, and there's no need to change it, honestly. Thank you."

She glanced around, taking a few more steps into the chamber.

"This is some set up. Reminds me of where I grew up in the Imperial Research Unit." She looked at Taeli. "Do you require me to help with anything?"

[member="Taeli Raaf"]
 
[member="Joon"]

"I'm glad to hear you like your accommodations," Taeli said, giving Joon a slight smile. "As for the architecture of this room, you aren't far off. I have always been an admirer of the Imperial style of architecture, mostly those from the post-Palpatine days. There's a... stylish order to everything. But, I didn't call you here to discuss the decor of my private training area. I called you here to begin your actual education and training in the ways of the galaxy and the Force."

Taeli took a few steps back, hands clenched behind her back.

"When we spoke yesterday, you mentioned that your former Master had barely taught you anything about the Force or lightsaber combat techniques, beyond a few quick lessons on telekinesis and a few sequences of the Soresu family. I would imagine that she neglected to teach you an essential skill for either a Jedi or a Sith. Today, before we delve into more... interesting techniques, we shall begin on developing your Force Sense ability so you may pick up on the emotions and surface thoughts of those you encounter, gain a general sense of their presence in the Force, and detect where something or someone is."

Taeli made a small gesture, a small remote hovering out of a drawer in the desk and over to the Master and student.

"Any questions before we begin?"
 
Joon stood still and quiet in the room, glancing around as Taeli spoke, still wary of what this place was but more so the mysterious Jedi talking to her. When she moved closer to Joon, her attention was drawn to the way she dressed and looked. She was very pretty, and very high-class.

And those tattoos – were they real? Maybe it was a trick. There was nothing on her skin. It must have been a Force vision.

She then looked to the remote and nodded.

"No questions. I know what to expect."

This training had been done before, and would be easy. Flattening down her rolled up sleeves in the all black shirt and trouser ensemble that was very bland and very basic, Joon scratched the back of her head and limbered up, rolling her wrists to click the stiff bone.

"Don’t hold back."

[member="Taeli Raaf"]
 
[member="Joon"]

"Very well then," Taeli said, gesturing with one hand and sending the lightsaber on the desk to the girl. She could tell there was some cockiness about the girl, but at least Taeli wasn't starting from scratch when it came to training her in this regard. Once the girl caught her lightsaber, which Taeli had preset to its training mode, she would take a few steps back. Hands held behind her, she would activate the remote... and then use the Force on the light switch. The entire room would be thrown into complete darkness, with only the small sphere of light provided by Joon's lightsaber once active being the only light source.

Joon would be able to hear the remote zooming around, but the slight echos in the chamber would be a hindrance for determining its exact location beyond a general direction. There would be a flash as a low=power stun bolt would be fired, illuminating the droid for a split second before it would zip away to fire from a completely different location.

Taeli would stand in the deepest shadows, using the Force to watch her student and see how she would handle herself in this beginning part of the lesson.
 
Joon took the hilt and nodded, looking it over and looking very calm herself, knowing what to expect. She looked at Taeli, and then at the training probe, and as soon as the probe moved, the room went black.

In the second Joon looked to where Taeli had been, the probe shot a bolt that hit her arm and sent a tingling numbness through her muscle. She yelped, and shook it off, feeling the dull ache already. If that had been a hit from a blaster, it would have taken her arm.

Immediately irked by the tricky situation thrown on her from what she expected, Joon moved quicker to keep the dimmer training blade angled to the probe to follow it around as best she could, because she couldn’t see far at all. Except she knew Taeli was watching and probably could see it all; the hesitant steps and the angry facial expression.

Another bolt, and Joon stepped back, waving the blade to use as light.

Shaking her head, the girl cursed. This wasn’t going to work and she knew why; she couldn’t use the saber as a guide to stop the probe AND deflect the bolts. And so it had to be the Force that helped her, as she had been told to do in certain situations.

Using her ears, Joon moved with the probe – another bolt, and this time a block that absorbed it.

As the relaxation came and the mind began to uncloud, Joon saw a little further than the probe – she saw where it would probably go next and when it would probably hit. She carried on moving and blocking, and cursing with the odd hit when her eye wandered to where Taeli was.

She wouldn’t stop until the command came to stop.

[member="Taeli Raaf"]
 
[member="Joon"]

Taeli was indeed watching from the shadows, observing the eddies and flows of the Force around her student as she defended herself against the remote. She had been off to a rough start, whether from inexperience or being rusty in the exercise, Taeli couldn't say. It was also possible she had never done something like this in the dark before, deprived of senses and having to only rely on her command of the Force to anticipate the remote.

With a flick of her wrist, Taeli sent a second remote into the exercise to test her student even more. With two remotes firing bolts at her, she would need to rely much more on the Force to anticipate and deflect the attacks heading her way. She would not be able to track two individually moving targets with random firing and movement patterns without it, well not discounting that many non-Force Sensitives had that skill but they had honed themselves for years to do so.

"Don't just use your eyes and ears, they can be deceived," Taeli said, her voice echoing around the chamber. "Use the Force, force it to help you anticipate the attacks or let it guide your hand. Stretch out with your feelings."
 
Joon sighed as the second probe came to life, and with the darkness surrounding her, bar the flashes of the bolts and the glow of the lightsaber, she was pretty much blind.

Creasing her brow in concentration, she could feel the probes around here, and turned either way to meet them, and started to feel some slight connection. A unison to know when and where they may strike. A couple got past her defense, but more than a couple she absorbed.

With a smile, she carried on for a few more minutes. She looked ahead, into the darkness, into nothing, and let her body move for her. She didn't think too hard, and just went with it.

"I've done this all before," she shouted out,"so I hope you have something more for me?"

Already she was getting too big for her own boots.

[member="Taeli Raaf"]
 
[member="Joon"]

"You are over-confident in your abilities," Taeli stated bluntly, her voice filling the chamber. "But if you insist on something a little more challenging... sense where I am. I'll give you ten seconds before I strike at you each time."

The probes would stop firing, plunging the chamber back into darkness except for the light cast by Joon's lightsaber. When she would reach out to find Taeli's location in the room, she would sense her everywhere at once, her presence in the Force perfectly balanced across the entire chamber. But Taeli wasn't about to let her just swing her lightsaber around to try and find her with the light cast by it. Shadows, created by Taeli, hung heavy around Joon, absorbing the light being cast by the red blade.

"Time is ticking, my apprentice."
 
The probes dropping sounded ten times louder than what they actually were when hitting the floor. They echoed around the room with Taeli’s voice sounding like some ethereal God talking down from the heavens. Joon swallowed and stood tall, training blade pointed down in her right hand as she turned slowly looking around.

Multiple shadows all seeming to be that of Taeli Raaf, and one presence that tickled her senses. Nothing jumped out. Nothing was indifferent to the other.

She walked along as a her time was ticking away.

"That’s impossible. I can’t push through your mental block can I," she said aloud, but almost to herself.

Joon anticipated a strike, but wasn’t going to make the first move. She would wait, and watch, stalking around in circles as if being nothing but bait.

[member="Taeli Raaf"]
 
[member="Joon"]

"It is not impossible, and I am not blocking you mentally," Taeli's voice would say. "I spread my presence to fill the room, but that does not mean a faint epicenter won't be there for you to find. Look and sense for the faint ripples, the little eddies left by someone as they move through the Force. By the way..."

Joon would feel the cool touch of a cortosis sword, borrowed from one of the Reaver droids present, against the back of her neck. It was just the flat of the blade, but it was to send a point.

"Dead," Taeli whispered in her ear before disappearing back into the shadows to wait for her apprentice to find her... for another ten seconds. "You said you wanted a challenge for your senses, but I could always make it harder by utilizing Art of the Small or a White Current illusion... but that defeats the purpose of teaching you at this stage. Maliciously tricking you is not on my to do list today. Come now, stretch out with this feelings and find me before I strike again."
 
Joon heard the voice, spinning around waiting for her to make a move – but it was too late.

She was dead.

Cursing under her breath, the clone shook her head and composed herself.

Ten seconds to not die again and to find a person not there.

She closed her eyes and looked for Taeli. That familiar aura, that focus she was giving her apprentice. She was somewhere around.

Six seconds.

Joon stopped moving and listened to the Force. Taeli was a living, breathing person. The others were shadows and nothing more.

Three seconds.

Taeli was to the…left!

One second.

Joon snapped open her eyes and turned like a shot to her left, training blade held up to a point which hopefully would be directed right at Miss Raaf’s face.

[member="Taeli Raaf"]
 
[member="Joon"]

"Better," Taeli said, the cortosis blade she was using meeting the training saber deftly and deflecting the strike away to her left. "But still leaves room for improvement time wise. It still took you nine seconds to find me, and that is too long for if you were in a combat situation. In the realm of Force Users battling, a second is all it can take to separate you from victory or defeat. You must constantly be sensing and probing for your opponent and what they might do in the Force. Not trying to force your way into their mind, but the little ripples they leave in the their movements, the small tells that you normally might miss... it must become second nature, almost a passive effect even as you use the Force in other ways such as a telekinetic attack or lightning."

Taeli disappeared back into the shadows again.

"You will have five seconds to find me now," she said, making her voice echo.
 
The slightest roll of the eyes and lowering of the head was enough to show Joon was already struggling with this…master and student role. She was bred to be a warrior, not be pushed from one willing teacher to another. With each day it felt she was losing the core of what she was and the JN project represented.

Joon snapped her head back up as Taeli vanished with the new command.

Instead of moving, Joon looked ahead, focusing on Taeli and her aura, as if she had suddenly turned her body off but keeping her mind alert.

Four seconds.

She didn’t think – just waited.

Two seconds.

Joon span, blade held at head height pointing straight out hopefully to meet the face of her target. She had moved on that feeling. That….sensation that Taeli was behind her. Taking out all sense and distraction, Joon simply listened to Taeli as she moved and where she was before turning.

[member="Taeli Raaf"]
 
[member="Joon"]

When Joon spun to face what she thought was Taeli's presence, she would find nothing being illuminated by her blade. Well... almost nothing. Hovering slightly away from the blade was a shadowy raven that gave a caw and then disappeared back into the shadows. Against the back of her knees, Joon would feel the cool blade of Taeli's sword pressed against them as though she was about to hamstring her apprentice.

"Dead from a misdirect," Taeli stated plainly, taking the blade away and not moving away as of yet. "Be wary of a wily opponent. Some will know how to project their presence elsewhere, either through a strong mentalist art or through other mediums. Take for instance what I did through a Sith familiar that I constructed years ago. It allows me to project my presence... my voice... even other Force powers through it to allow me greater range or other avenues of attack. A previous apprentice of mine devoted herself to creating these familiars, creating a vast number to use for whatever means she desired."

Taeli moved back into the shadows of the room, the fluttering of wings now heard every few moments.

"Are you getting frustrated yet, Joon? Angry and annoyed by the tricks? Do you wish for me to stand against you? Then find me. Five seconds."
 
Biting down on her tongue as the blade touched her knee, she closed her eyes and seethed, not wanting to turn around. She was doing nothing but boasting now. Joon had had enough.

Five more seconds. For what?

"Yes I am!"

She threw her training hilt at a random direction and screamed.

"Who the hell do you think you are?!" She gritted her teeth and span on the spot to stare into the darkness as the flapping noise got louder. "Teach me to be powerful and stop playing games!! TEACH ME!"

[member="Taeli Raaf"]
 
[member="Joon"]

"Awe poor Joon," Taeli's voice would say, mockingly, echoing from every direction. "Already tired of games? I don't think you quite understand how this works, but allow me to explain so you no longer have misconceptions on anything."

A powerful Force Push would rocket out, with the aim of knocking Joon off balance.

"There are no easy paths to power, Joon," Taeli's voice would continue. "There are no shortcuts to becoming powerful in the Force, even with the dark side. You have to build it from the ground up, challenge yourself and overcome every obstacle in your way."

There would be clatter as the remnants of a concentration amulet would clink at Joon's feet, the amulet being a carved blister trap from a Sith Leviathan.

"My master forced me to hunt down a Sithspawn creature and craft that amulet, as part of my first lesson when I was a new acolyte among the One Sith. I could only use what I had, nothing else, to fight and kill the beast. Sith are forged and become powerful through overcoming every challenge they are given, if not... they simply die and the master moves onto the next student who shows potential and forgets everything about the failure."

The lights would flicker back on, slowly illuminating Taeli sitting at her desk, the Sith familiar sitting on her shoulder.

"So tell me Joon, will you play along with the games and overcome my challenges... or will you keep complaining and acting like a petulant child?" she asked, stroking the feathers of the familiar.
 
She felt the anger rising in her chest, but it was knocked out of her - along with her breath - as the Force push barreled into her and sent her sprawling back ungracefully across the floor.

Coughing and wheezing, pulling herself up, the clattering by her side distracted her enough to compose herself and calm down.

She fingered the amulet and held it, glancing up through tear-strewn eyes at the Jedi at her desk with something on her shoulder. Letting her head rest on the cold floor, Joon pulled herself together and closed her eyes.

"Mmm."

Joon dragged herself up and walked, or more-so flopped her way across, feeling like she had been punched in the gut, the amulet dangling through her fingers.

"You're not a Jedi. What are you," she croaked.

[member="Taeli Raaf"]
 

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