Ask Ziost Just Sell-este Your Soul

[Varyn Atrix]

Varyn didn't miss that she used his exact opening attack against him, but that wasn't a problem. It wasn't like it wasn't a normal opener that a million other people over the years hadn't used.

His own saber came up and made a vertical block against hers, blades locking magnetically against one another as he stepped forward and to his own left pivoting as his left foot planted. The movement put him in a flash on her right side, and his right hand started shooting out.

It was aimed to strike at her arm and if it were a real fight he'd have aimed to break her elbow.

@LadyRen

 

[Celeste Stythani]

She was a bit surprised about him not pausing, but didn't mind letting their current boutique continue either. They didn't have to stop after each and every move and she was curious to see how this would play out now.

Funnily enough, instead of doing more with his lightsaber then blocking, he chose to let his free hand shoot out and right into the direction of her slightly exposed arm. She did not intend to let that happen and so without disengaging, she used her free left hand that was still in front of her body to attempt to simply stop his movement mid-air by holding her training partner in a stasis.

She was mentally taken back to that fighting pit on Rattatak years ago, where she had held Laeonas in a stasis for quite some time, thereby slightly driving him crazy but at the same time, while at the same time buying herself time to calm him and bring him back to his senses.

It was a different situation now, but she had still been a Sith Champion back then and she was back with the Empire now and even if everything else had changed, her attack was almost the same. She was highly concentrated on applying a stasis as effective as possible, thereby hoping to fully freeze her opponent up and hopefully catch him off guard with that as well.

@Phoenix

 

[Varyn Atrix]

Restraining a trained Force-user of equal power who had not been weakened was no easy feat, and it certainly wasn't instantaneous. She tried to stop it, but his blow would still find purchase on her arm even if it was no longer strong enough to break a bone.

Without hesitation, his right foot came up and slammed into her leg as well and with her entire concentration on the stasis, she'd have virtually no chance of avoiding it. Rather than aim for the knee, though, he aimed higher for the muscle of the thigh.

Pause! he shouted. There was now a great deal to unpack, but first and foremost was this: If this was a real fight, I'd have just broken your knee, he said.

He relaxed and stepped back. Stasis is highly risky unless you're... more powerful than either of us. Requires too much concentration and leaves you vulnerable to attacks that can cripple or kill you, he said.

Plus it's not instant, especially not over large parts of the body, he said.

That being said, it did dampen the initial blow to your arm, but against an equal Force-user on equal footing, it's dangerous, he warned. It was an ability he seldom used for that precise reason. Far too much risk.

@LadyRen

 

[Celeste Stythani]

Well, maybe she should have kept one thing in mind: She was fighting against someone who wasn't even the tiniest bit rusty and overly focused on their fight, so maybe she should have already calculated the risks of her actions.

What worked was how she managed to lessen his blow, but it still came and it still hurt. What hurt more though was the kick that followed. She saw his leg coming up, but even by slightly retracting the leg she couldn't actually lessen this attack.

With all her focus laying on the stasis that was supposed to hold him, he had solely been a bit slowed around the area his upper body, leaving his legs fully mobile though. She let out a slight hiss and started rubbing the hit areas after he instructed the next pause.

The truth was, his kick has been quite hard and yes, even if he could have broken her knee instead, but he had not been lying when he had mentioned not to go easy on her. But alas, this was definitely an efficient way of learning and the bruises would keep reminded her of the mistakes she had commited for a while...

"Yeah...it works super well against non force-sensitive combatants and it had worked well on someone who I had considered an equal once...but you're right. That was rather naive. I was hoping to surprise you more with it" she admitted quietly, trying hard to block out the pain that radiated from two areas.

She took a deep breathed and relaxed the tense muscles before she rolled her shoulders. She had a feeling that tomorrow would be even more painful than today, but giving up was never an option. "Noted...let's continue". She said as she startled circling him from the newly built distance, now doing something she had re-learned, too: Using the pain to draw from it.

She walked a few steps, not letting her target out of sight before she reached out with her left hand and targeted his legs this time. Through the Force, she was wrapping invisible tendrils around both of his legs before she forcefully yanked them to the left, attempting to let him fall in a best case scenario, or at least to make him stagger and lose both, focus and balance.

@Phoenix

 

[Varyn Atrix]

Varyn shook his head as she said that she was naive. This is why we're here: to learn. You only need to feel bad if you make a mistake in the field, he said. This was why they trained and learned. Not every opponent she fought would be an aspiring blademaster.

He was going to give her time to catch her breath, but she seemed to want to press on so he didn't argue with her. They had space once again and she started rotating around him. He turned with her, keeping her squared up to him before she finally made her attack.

It was a popular one, it seemed. Not so different from what she had done earlier or what he had faced on Mustafar.

He focused his own Force energy into himself, making gripping his legs far more tricky in the Force, like grabbing an oiled fish. At the same time, he dropped low, crouching over his legs to lower his point of balance, saber still at the ready, though she hadn't actually launched a follow-up attack yet. And for him... he was patient.

@LadyRen

 

[Celeste Stythani]

She was surpised about how he actually denied what she had just pointed out about her own mistake, as she was used to instructors being completely ruthless when it came to such things. "Mistakes on the battlefield can easily be deadly, too" she had added, before launching her actual attack.

As expected, there was no actual yanking as he simply lowered his point of balance and countered her attack by focusing the Force around his legs. He didn't actually budge and she knew that trying to reinforce that same attack wouldn't help either, so she had to act quickly, especially because he wasn't even considering a counterattack right now.

Instead of continuing the pull, she rapidly shifted her focus onto a dummy that was standing in the corner of the room and yanked this non-resillient opponent towards the crouching champion, hoping to use the flying doll as a battering ram to hopefully knock him of his feet this time. While doing the Force pull that was supposed to direct the dummy towards the Champion, she stepped closer towards him, lightsaber defensively, but readily held in front of her body in case he planned something in return. She was, however, not striking yet.

@Phoenix

 

[Varyn Atrix]

She released the grip on his legs, but he didn't leap upward just yet. Instead, he focused and the world seemed to slow around him. The Force flowed and pulled at the room, manipulated by her and him in ways that carried their own faint traces of existence.

As she hurled the dummy at him, he used the potential energy of his bent legs to spring up and to the side just before it came into contact with him. It would fly past him as he reached out to grab it with the Force himself, accelerating it to continue on toward her and combine with her own power.

With luck it would strike her or her saber would be caught up in batting it away, allowing him to make a quick dart forward and swipe at her in a diagonal strike from his own left shoulder toward right hip, looking to catch her in her own ploy and distract her in order to land the relatively lightly-hitting blow.

@LadyRen

 

[Celeste Stythani]

It was rather obvious that the Champion would use his position to leap upwards, but she had to admit that his patience was clever. The jump came, but later than expected and he immediately reached out himself to influence the trajectory of the accelerated dummy to hurl it back at her.

She was prepared for this though. As soon as he reached out to grab the speeding dummy, she let go, so that her own influence on the training tool would be stopped. The dummy still came at her, but she was prepared to jump out of the waybright in time.

With the dummy gone, there was nothing left between them and Varyn had already closed the distance between them anyway to strike at her diagonally. Her own, still activated lightsaber came up from her right hip to diagonally block his saber mid air, and now she was adapting what he had done before: With their lightsabers locked, she immediately brought up her right leg in an attempt to land a decently powerful kick against his upper, left thight, that was supposed to at least break his focus before he would try a next, possible attack.

@Phoenix

 

[Varyn Atrix]

She was learning, and it caused Varyn to smile. She had evaded the dummy and managed to position herself to avoid being caught off guard. She was beginning to anticipate things better, and it gave him hope that she may yet manage to become a skilled swordswoman.

As their blades caught against one another, clashing and spewing sparks, he saw her leg come up. Though he couldn't truly avoid it, he did bend his leg up, distributing the impact across more of his leg to lessen the impact. It still hurt, however.

Pain shot through his muscle but was overpowered by adrenaline. He leapt backwards, landing smoothly several meters away with a broad smile on his face.

Excellent work, he praised. You've incorporated what you learned. Keep at it with the practice and you'll be there in no time, he said. His saber flashed out in his hands. There was a limit to what could be learned and practiced in a day, and he had already loaded her up with a great deal of new information to ponder and practice.

@LadyRen

 

[Celeste Stythani]

Maybe she was half-expecting him to quickly come up with something to stop her, but no, this time she was positively surpised that her maneuver had gone just as planned. She wasn't hit by the dummy and she stopped his blade before her leg made contact with his.

The way he slightly bent his leg made it more uncomfortable for her too, but it nothing compared to the kick he had landed earlier. A smirk spread across her face and it only widened when she saw that he was satisfied with her work, too.

The praise that came was unexpected, as she hadn't received much praise for quite some time and most instructors she had met hadn't been good with such things, so his genuine comment made her happy.

"Thanks...", she switched off her lightsaber,"I had a great teacher" she then added with a broader smile. The adrenaline was still pumping through her veins but her slightly torn shirt would not be the only remnant of her training. It was as if she could almost feel the bruises from the blows he had landed forming, but she didn't actually mind. Pain was an efficient teacher sometimes and she had definitely learnt a lot already.

She breathed deeply and calmed her heartbeat while doing so, before she also her relaxed her rather tense muscles. From his tone she could tell that he was seemingly announcing the end of their session, but since she had been relocated to Ziost for her retraining for a few days, she finally had some more free time. "And thanks for the encouragement" she softly added with a wink, before she stretched her back. This Varyn was definitely different than most. It was oddly refreshing to meet someone like him and she was convinced they'd cross paths again here on Ziost for as long as she was here.


@Phoenix