"Ah, the spell!" Maple said, as [member="Kurenai Yumi"] reminded her. "I found it in this old library on Dantooine. Some archive written by people called The Resistors of Darkness. Its called The Spell of Arrows.
Maple managed to rise up a bit, keeping the Ice on her leg as she walked. She called on the old forces within. Magic was more chaotic, which paradoxically, she had found, was much easier to call on than the Force. Magic did things pure Force Users could not easily replicate...
Skip.
Uri Udinia sat crosslegged in the training chamber, assembling her rifle blindfolded with telekinesis. Ursula paced about in the outer darkness of the chamber, crystal blue eyes set against lavender skin as the Twi'lek circled her student in the outer darkness of it.
To call Ursula beautiful was...not "inaccurate". She had fine, sharp cheekbones and purple lips. Her nose long but not wide, and her ice-blue gaze that reminded her of the gaze of an eagle. But it was the beauty of the glacier. She was clad in white training robes, a light but noticeable floral pattern on the tunic.
"The greatest weapon is not the lightsaber, dagger, or rifle and pistol. It is the mind. It is The Force Uri..." Ursula explained in that ever clinical tone.
"Without a mind to plan the attack, of what good is a weapon? Nothing but an inanimate object..." Ursula told her blindfolded protege, who was struggling.
"A mind tells the Force what to do. How to affect the world. Without living minds the Force would largely be useless. Would have no purpose without creatures who can think and feel to work its will. It needs us, and we need it. Basic symbiosis..."
The parts to the rifle started assembling faster even as they orbited now around Uri, who was in a trance guiding the Force. Uri waited for the attack, her own cane next to her. She knew the rules. She must not lose focus, even while defending.
The attack from Ursula's blue lightsaber came faster than expected, hissing and spitting for her chest and face, but Uri was ready, her own Jedi Lightsaber going active with its shining, golden yellow blade clashing against blue light.
The parts, still orbiting around her head, started to waver as she maintained a tight order in her head, as she defended against repeated but fast and focused stabs from Ursula's blade. Plasma clashed with plasma, the blaster rifle assembling itself albeit shakily, Uri's need to finish the blaster against Ursula's relentless assault.
Ursula's Niman barrowed much from Uri's preferred form Ataru, overwhelming, aggressive power blows from all sides but with just enough energy in reserve to defend against counterattacks. But Ursula moved so fast in her attacks that counter attacking was next to impossible. Ursula was a superior athlete. Even Uri, who exercised like a woman possessed, was not at Ursula's level.
The parts orbiting her head continued to waver, and in the end both the uncertainty and strain proved too much, and Uri was finally sent tumbling to the ground, after Ursula simply knocked her to it with a sharp elbow. Her rifle parts clattered around her.
Ursula was looking at a nail. "Sloppy. But better than last month. You need to focus--"
Uri, winded even by the brief exchange with her, rose, shaking a little from the adrenaline.
"I can only focus for so long..."
"That attitude will get you killed. Only the best, the most enduring, will survive the garbage heaps in the dark places we hunt Sith. Do you know why Anakin Skywalker was the greatest Jedi Fencer of all time?" Uri asked sternly.
Uri shrugged, confused. "But he lost to Luke Skywalker in the end. He ended up dead just like all the other traitors."
Ursula frowned.
"Anakin was the greatest fencer of all time because he learned the single most valuable lesson of all his life on Mustafar: He finally learned through pain what he could never learn through Obi-Wan."
"What did he learn?" Uri asked, finally catching her breath.
Ursula rolled her eyes. "Typical. No gift for looking beyond the surface beyond knowing which caliber works best against it. One of your biggest flaws."
"I am getting better, like you said."
"At delaying your inevitable defeat longer, not at showing patience. Which, by the way, is the lesson Anakin learned: Patience."
"How did getting melted teach him patience?" Uri asked, hands on her hips."
"He never made the same mistakes again afterward. He forced himself to focus and play to what strengths he had left. He forced himself to be patient. It served him well. It served him so well he was the only one left standing in the end to kill Sidious."
Uri's face betrayed her skepticism. "Are you saying that was his intent all along?"
Ursula shrugged. Her gaze went strangely glassy for a second and her voice became a little bit more glacier-like in tone.
"Maybe not consciously..." she surmised. "But the point is, mastering your greatest weapon is as much a matter of patience as it is of strategy. It was the perfect duel if you want to look at it from a certain point of view. But perhaps the duel was not so much between Anakin and his son so much as Anakin and Sidious. A duel that lasted over two decades and how many dead, all so Anakin could have the perfect moment and motivation to finally kill the rotting old bastard. Palpatine should have killed him on the beach then and there, but he was in need of a powerful, but ultimately disposable slave." Ursula elaborated.
But soon the Woman turned to get some distance.
"Disassemble what you have...and start again..." Ursula instructed, flourishing her blue blade.
Uri sighed and got back down to meditate on the rifle parts.
Skip.
Maple snapped out of the memory, having been gone only half a second in the real world. She saw a target post set up.
She focused, being patient. Her mind would clear when it would. She felt the magic surge.
"You have to connect to it, deep in, and speak these words while holding out your hand..." Maple told Kurenai.
"Mother Nature, a flight of arrows speeds to my foes..."
Bright purple light erupted from her hand...but five more arrows than normal flew out of her hand, purple and fiery, wispy in nature, striking the target post meant for arrows.
Maple turned with a pained look to Kurenai.
"Try it. They won't go through anything more than light armor but I found that its not good to so much as hit the opponent as to try and make them avoid it and go in the direction you want. They got a slow travel time so if you use it for ambushes just make sure you are at close range and behind the enemy."
Maple staggered aside a little to give Kurenai a try.
