The Past is the Past (Siobhan)

[Phylis Alince]

@[member="Siobhan Kerrigan"]

Phylis didn’t even bother replying to the last, just rolled her eyes. “Knowledge is its own reward, Siobhan,” she said piously.
“However, if you are willing to learn, I have some things I can teach even you about the Force. Perhaps you might even learn to protect yourself so you don’t lose as many limbs!”

 

[Siobhan Kerrigan]

@[member="Phylis Alince"]

Siobhan pouted. "I know plenty of things!" Like she countless ways to dismember and crush people and expertly satisfy a woman's every lust and desire. This was definitely the sort of knowledge Phylis meant.

The part of Siobhan that was tremendously proud and stubborn felt like making a comment about how she did not lose that many limbs and could perfectly hold her own, but then she looked intrigued and smiled. It had actually been years since she had trained with someone. The last one had been Cira...and for various reasons her opinion of her was not the highest anymore.

"That does actually sound good, yeah. What do you have in mind?"

 

[Phylis Alince]

@[member="Siobhan Kerrigan"]
“You have considerable strength in telekinesis, but can you use that to form a shield to protect yourself? Can you defend yourself from hostile Force attacks?”
Phylis led the way upstairs to the large temple open space again. Once there she turned to look at Siobhan questioningly.

 

[Siobhan Kerrigan]

@[member="Phylis Alince"]

"To an extent, can cast a basic force shield. Only it's basic. Keeps out basic volleys of force energy, Spear of Midnight Black, not much though. Most of the time I just ride attacks out and hit back hard if dodging, lightsabre deflection or using telekinesis to summon enviromental obstacles doesn't work," Siobhan replied honestly.

To put it bluntly, she sucked when it came to using defensive powers. She had the benefit of having a ridiculously high pain tolerance, but more often than not she paid the price that came with using her head as a battering ram and trying to shrug or ride out the damage that came with it. Hence why though outwardly she might appear as strong and fit, even with a galaxy of medical talent and the healing she had received from Coryth, the damage had taken its toll, so now she was relying very strongly on the Force in battle and less on physical fitness.

 

[Phylis Alince]

@[member="Siobhan Kerrigan"]

“You use the Force like a bludgeon. And that’s fine, but there are other ways to use it. Typically I would teach my students to use the Force by calling on the light to shield them from debilitating effects of the Dark Side. In your case…other means must suffice.”
She did not say if this was due to Siobhan’s skills in TK…or simply because she lacked the necessary connection with the Light Side…but one could draw inferences.

“Though more crude, a telekinetic defence is perfectly adequate in defending against all Force offensives. The trick is maintaining the focus and concentration required to keep your guard up. Form up a strong defence, and tell me when you’re ready,” Phylis ordered.

 

[Siobhan Kerrigan]

@[member="Phylis Alince"]

Considering that Phylis belonged to a Jedi council that was fine with war crimes and mass murderers the point about a lack of a strong connection to the light side, though true since Siobhan was definitely not a moral or even good person, what with being a violent narcissist who liked force lightning, was rather ironic. If the jihadist 'Paladins of Righteousness' were what one called light side, what was dark these days?

Regardless, presumably this took place before the Republic crossed its Moral Event Horizon.

So Siobhan nodded obediently and sunk into the Force, trying to still her mind and concentrate. Finding a measure of calm and focus came easier to her now than it might have done years ago. She was the opposite of the serene ideal the Jedi supposedly espoused, but she was more at peace with herself...or perhaps had simply accepted it. However, forming an actual defence still came difficult and thus was a strain on her. But finally, harnessing the energies of the Force and wrapping herself in its protective embrace, she managed to form a barrier....though it could use some improvement.

"I'm ready," she stated as she sought to strengthen the connection, pouring more of her energy into it. If in battle Siobhan cast a force shield it was usually just to shrug off a single powerful volley, never really for sustained combat, now she had to push herself into maintaining it so that it might reflect whatever attack came shooting towards it.

 

[Phylis Alince]

@[member="Siobhan Kerrigan"]
Phylis sat on a broken spar, meditating, focusing herself. Pebbles and loose stones started to rise up and fly at Siobhan. Not hard of course, but hard enough to cause pressure on her defences. Meanwhile Phylis also readied a stone from behind Siobhan’s defence.
“Concentrate, Siobhan, resist the urge to bulrush the enemy. Focus on defence, and watch all sides,” she added.
The stone looped back and flew slowly towards Siobhan’s back. The Jedi Master was not looking to hurt Siobhan, but to teach a lesson about being observant.

 

[Siobhan Kerrigan]

@[member="Phylis Alince"]

Siobhan's usual tactic when faced with a volley would be either to try and dodge or to thrust it back with her telekinesis, preferrably aiming to bludgeon the enemy to death. Perhaps throw up environmental obstacles, like the tank she had levitated to block the thousands of high-powered laser shots Tricia had shot at her at one point during their duel...before throwing the tank at the dark master. When it came to such a volley of shots she was facing presently she might have actually just taken the hit, anchoring herself to the ground.

However, the point of the training was to focus on strengthening her force-based defence. So come flying the volley of small stones and peebles did. Individually not a threat, if thrown as scatter shots and with strong kinetic force behind them, that would be a different matter. Holding the shield up was causing an evident strain on Siobhan, for her seemingly boundless energy was conditioned towards offence, but she poured more energy into the shield. Pressure was brought on her defence as the shots clashed with it and she pushed to maintain it, though they were deflected from her, scattering to the winds.


However, then came the stone being shot towards her back. Now, despite her notoriously short attention span on many things, Siobhan was aware of her surroundings, simply because not made you liable to getting shot in the back on the battlefield. Or getting your legs blown off by a thermal detonator. However, she had been concentrated on keeping the shield up and though she stretched out with her senses to anticipate dangers, her focus was off. So it was late when she sensed the incoming projectile and instinctively spun, dodging and thrusting it back just as it would have almost hit her face. Amidst this the force shield embracing her dissipated.

 

[Phylis Alince]

@[member="Siobhan Kerrigan"]
Phylis stopped her assault when Siobhan turned. "Siobhan, you fight so hard to resist the urge to attack. I'm not doubting that normally works, but you need to calm yourself, change gears, relax."
She crossed to Siobhan and stood beside her. "Close your eyes, focus on the Force all around you. Let your defence cover you, keep it relaxed. The key is not to strain yourself all the time, only when the shield is pressed do you need to hold it up. There...are you ready?"

 

[Siobhan Kerrigan]

@[member="Phylis Alince"]

Relaxing came difficult to Siobhan. Or rather her idea of relaxing was radically different. In battle she did achieve a certain calmness...but she found it in crushing her enemies, shutting anything down that might stop her from turning into the near-psychotic killing machine she so often became. Probably one of the many reasons why she would never have made it as a Jedi.

Nonetheless she tried, much as the whole idea of passivity rebelled against her, seeking to find focus as she closed her eyes and opened her mind to the Force, perceiving the stream or rather the multitude of convergent streams that it formed, forming up all around her. The urge to push herself, to simply will the Force to follow the pattern she dictated, which again tended to produce a never-ending cycle, was strong and she faltered for a moment. But then, taking a breath, she briefly managed to simply...let go and then there was only the Force, wrapping itself around her and forming a cocoon of sorts.

It felt...strange...but calmning in a way. "Yeah, I think."

 

[Phylis Alince]

"There! That's better. Now, let's begin again."
Stones came faster this time, from all sides, aiming for weak points. Phylis was more confident that Siobhan could stop her, but still made sure things were not dangerously fast.
@[member="Siobhan Kerrigan"]

 

[Siobhan Kerrigan]

@[member="Phylis Alince"]

So once again new shots came, their Speed and velocity amplified through the Force and greater than on the last round, homing in on weak spots, cracks in the metaphysical wall. Siobhan did feel the urge to lash out, to trust in the Force and her defences, to trust in anything beyond her battering ramming ability, felt alien to her. She did manage to control herself though. Not the serenity the Jedi strove for as an ideal, though as so often ideals were easier on paper than in the often harsh reality, but then she would never achieve that anyway.

Shots came shooting at the barrier with some force behind them, though not dangerously fast, the first were easily reflected and bounced off much like tennis balls being hit by a tennis bat, or whatever the equivalent in this Galaxy was. The shield flickered for a few moments as chinks were struck and Siobhan twitched slightly before regaining control, the shield holding.

 

[Phylis Alince]

@[member="Siobhan Kerrigan"]
Phylis nodded and stopped the assault. "I'll not tell you how to do telekinesis, you're quite capable of that yourself, and better than I at it too. But this, this is how it is done Change your focus from a single to a broad focus. Defence means covering many angles at once. Now, I know of no Force abilities to use on you, none I would actually use on another person anyway, so you'll have to figure the rest yourself. An easy way to do it however is to set up a hose to spray water at you and then defend against it. The concept is the same."

 

[Siobhan Kerrigan]

@[member="Phylis Alince"]

This one would question the wisdom of teaching Siobhan anything. But then in this Jedi order she might be a council member and perhaps not even the nuttiest. Perhaps. For all her talk about fighting Sith she had done terribly little of that. "With my track record I'll be sure to run into someone force lightening me," Siobhan joked. As usual her jokes were lame. "Well, maybe now I won't get my limbs fried. Anyway, thanks a lot for the help. I'll keep at it."

 

[Phylis Alince]

@[member="Siobhan Kerrigan"]

“Well now, since you’ve duly witnessed all of the goings on here and stayed for all the excitement I guess you’ll wish to leave? You’re welcome to stay of course, but you don’t strike me as the type who would enjoy spending an extra week here noting down everything. Or maybe you are! Hmm. Either way, I hope you learned something here, and I also hope you don’t tell the Queen about what we found until I’m several light years away!”
Phylis smiled.

 

[Siobhan Kerrigan]

@[member="Phylis Alince"]

Not so long ago, probably less than an hour, Phylis had said that she would present her findings to the Queen and leave it to her whether she would suppress it or not, since either way she would have her notes. Perhaps she had changed her mind. Given what happened the last time they revealed uncomfortable facts to the Royal Court, that was probably smart. Admittedly memory loss happened pretty often in this Galaxy, since sometimes evil dark lords forgot they were Sith after being reprogrammed by the Jedi council and sent on vaguely defined missions to save the Galaxy.

Either way Siobhan did not seem to mind. Or perhaps not notice. It was not like she was the most attentive person. "Sure. Think I'll be heading back home, but thanks. It was nice meeting you again. Don't spend too much time alone out there in the ruins!" she gave Phylis a gentle pat on the shoulder - they were not on a hug basis after all - and then, departing onward to her ship.

Naturally at this very moment it began to rain again - in droves and soon there was the distant roar of thunder. She really should have put her raincoat on!