Just...slide. (Jodi Breclusa Training)

[Dread]

Ramnous let his blue orbs move back to his student. Questioning her motives for opening the door he decided not to look much into it. If she wanted to act more respectfully to him then he would allow. Respect was not weakness, cowering at his knees was, never fighting back was - but they where quite amusing to watch. Lifting his chin, he would take steps towards the door until he got inside. A few words left his lips as he passed her, "Very good then...perhaps now I'll see real improvements." He would not show her any mercy, even if she decided to tame her ways down a bit. No, she would have to do more then that.

((OCC: You can role play going inside/waking up the next morning if you want. Or I will take that control of the storyline. Whomever does, doesn't matter to me))

 

[TheIronLotus]

((I’ll take it. :D))

Jodi chose not to say a single word as her Master stepped inside. She walked in right after him, shutting the door behind her, reattaching the lightsabers to her belt.

What a day.

After showering and having a small dinner, she lay down in bed…and she slept the best that she had in years.

[the next morning]

Jodi wasn’t even hungry for breakfast the next morning. She awoke at around 6, clothed herself, and arrived at her Master’s door. This time, instead of knocking she simply reached out to his mind to announce her presence before opening the door. She had a hunger for knowledge, a hunger to learn and grow more powerful.

"Morning, Master."

 

[Dread]

She might notice as she entered the room that it would be the first time she had caught him laying down. No doubt it left him in his weakest position before her. He was fully robed, even if his ebony hair was not tied back but sprawled out around him. The ebony hair also draped over his rock hard pillow made of a rubber material. He found this lasted longer, and did not allow him to spend to much time in the comfort of his bed. Above him, up in the air in the line of his blue eyes sight a datapad hung between his fingers. In the way he laid on his back, one of his legs where bent and his knee cap pointed straight in the air, well his left leg lay straight on the ground. In a way, he would seem even smaller laid on the ground in such a way - like a kid, but he was far from the age of a child.

"I see you decided to let yourself in..." Taking note of this only, he didn't mind it. In time he knew that she would become closer or further from him. All students had to go one or the other way - unless they differed from the normal. Later he would teach her something he used daily to fuel his power, as a reward of her eagerness. If she did not always pay attention to it he would force it on her. But, that would wait for awhile.

"Tell me, what do you desire to do today, or do you wish for me to not offer you this gift of control for once?" It was odd, a master asking a student how they wished to be taught. He was a one of a kind Bogan. If she was smart, she would take the moment and run with it - but most student's would have no clue how to use this time to their advantage. "If you do not wish it, I will not offer you again."

 

[TheIronLotus]

The position he was in seemed like a strange way to catch him, but she paid less attention to this as she did to the offer he made her. It was an excellent opportunity, one that she had spent much time thinking about, and she would definitely take advantage of it now.

After some thought, she spoke.

“The immediate thing to come to mind was to teach me how to coat myself with the Force in the strange way that you do…but I know that you’ve already said you don’t wish to teach that to me at the time. And that’s fair enough, although it does seem intriguing, but there are more important things to learn at the moment anyways.” She paused. “The next thing to come to mind was swordplay, as it seems you have bested me in terms of technique every time we’ve sparred. Admittedly, it’s to be expected, as you have far more experience than I do, but I feel that I learn more about this in the midst of action anyways, and we spar daily. So that was off the list. There are some Force powers that I’m interested in as well, particularly how to better use Force Lightning but…there is one thing that stands out above the rest.”

She winced as she realized what she was about to say. For someone who prided themselves on their self-confidence in their abilities, it was very difficult.

“I would…I would like you teach me about my weaknesses. If I know these, I can better guard against exposing them, and right now, I feel that is the most useful thing for me to learn about.” She stared at her Master, waiting for his reaction – she expected perhaps laughter, or maybe condescension. Weakness was not something she believed he would be understanding about, and acknowledging weakness was something the Bogan as a whole didn’t particularly like.

 

[Dread]

"Weakness..." The datapad he had in the air would be brought to his chest, as would his hands along with it before he stared up at her - his head titled only slightly so that his eyes had to move to the side to see her clearly. He did not bother getting up to the questions, rather, he scoffed as the words left her lips. "Weakness is to be exploited and fed off." He did not expect her to understand the "fed off" part, but if she did he would be impressed. "You would be crazy to speak of this to anyone but me. I will muse you in your endeavor to better yourself, but some weaknesses cannot be fixed, rather, ignored for your better, that, or weigh what you gain from having a flaw then what you would loose from it." His lips curled in a dark manner, his eyes flashed in a way that his darkness shined through, "You are a women, therefore you have many weaknesses, but then again it gives you some saving graces." Admittedly, he was sexist, but not enough to not take on a female student or to say she could never be strong. "Shall I continue to rip you a part?" That was likely another smart offer for her to take, but it was up to his student. He wanted her to feel a lash, to know how low the Bogan looked on the weak, how he would pray on her as much as he could during the subject. Was it worth it? He pondered her answer to continue or not.

"As for sparring, then we will do so today, later, when everything is out of the way." Giving his student power over her lesson today was limited, he would choose when they would do it or even if they would do it, but it still stood as a good offer. "Then I will continue with your force lightening lessons - and as for force deflect, as I said, prove to us," Another slip up, "your worth."It was something he wanted to hang over her heard as long as he could so that she would be a good dog and earn it rightfully.

 

[TheIronLotus]

She noted little details of what he said, particularly about exploiting weakness. After he’d finished speaking, Jodi leaned against the door, eyes narrowed.

“I’m a woman? Fair enough, but it’s not exactly something I could correct. And, like you said, there are many saving graces…” She grinned. “Who knows, maybe there will be someone trying to save me as a damsel in distress. Just another opportunity. But there must be other weaknesses. Continue to rip me apart, please,” she finished. “If you’re feeding off of this, I might just try to starve you before training’s end.”

Jodi wasn’t trying to mock her master, rather, to hint that she’d picked up on what he’d said. And she was legitimately interested in what weaknesses he saw in her.

 

[Dread]

Inside his eyes, the blackness of his pupils slit, the blueness would engulf most of his eyes,"Ha! HAHAHA! HAHAAHAHAHAHA! HAHAHAAHAA!" The arch of his back would curve up as he laughed manically. A true testament to his persona. Before soon he would stand, eyes still crazed in the offer she gave him. In steps that seemed to drift him over the ground to her, he placed his left hand firmly on the wall behind her if she did not move from his menacing ways. His arm was so clos that it would rest on her shoulder. His face would be closer then ever, eyes locked in contest and challenge, lips near her own - she would be able to feel his breath now. "WEAKNESS! First, that you think you could starve me from your suffering. I will, I will make you suffer through this if I have to get physical CHILD! I will dive deep into your head and force it out of you so that you may tend to my needs. Give me your suffering, your pain, and my power will become tenfold. The true darkness, the true power of the dark side is that of which makes others weak and you stronger in it." He would pause now, before going further, to see how she would react to his lesson. It was not simply about her weakness, as much as it was putting importance of how he used her weakness. She thought it was simply a game, and he wished to break that from her. If he had too, he would rip it from her and make her pay in blood and pain for her ignorance.

 

[TheIronLotus]

Jodi didn’t flinch as her Master’s face loomed closer, sneering in derision. A fleck of spittle hit her cheek as he shouted and she wrinkled her nose in slight distaste, but besides that, she managed to keep her composure well.

“It was a simple play on words, Master,” she said, eyeing him a tad warily. “I have no doubt that I will suffer…if only so that I might grow stronger, but I know you will take advantage of it. And I will persevere through it, so that I may eventually take a Padawan of my own…and leech him of his suffering as well.” Jodi’s eyes were alight with a strange, evil fire. “I see how you enjoy my pain, my cries of it…I would never be so presumptuous to assume that I could take that away from you.”

“Now, Master Ramnous, about those weaknesses…”

 

[Dread]

With that confirmation of her understanding, he then laid his forehead on hers. His right hand came up to run his fingers over her eyes, if she did not shut them she would need to turn away to avoid them. He would attempt to crawl into her head again. Placing images into her brain of pure darkness. As he did he would began to try to suck the force from her as well. Making her weak to him, hoping that it would cause her body to fall into his grasps. It was all to make the illusion seem real, to make it seem as if her body was taken by darkness and that she would fall into a pit. If submitted into the illusion, she would only hit the bottom of the blackness at the same point he would have her body hit the floor.

On the floor of blackness, in the blackness, one figure would start to walk towards her from a great distance, one with blue eyes. Maybe she would expect it would be her master that walked but when it got close enough, it was a copy of her. The version of her would hold her arms out to challenge the other version of her. With that challenge in the making, the two hilts would fly to her hands and then ignite with almost no movement from her. Vertically in par with eachother the sabers held to her left side.

 

[TheIronLotus]

((Hola, her eyes are more grey than anything, just for future reference. ^^))

Jodi allowed him to pry his way into her mind, knowing that there must be a reason. She closed her eyes. But as she did so, something else started to take place…like ink was seeping down a blanked out black datapad screen, the dark she suffered by lack of sight began growing darker and darker. She couldn’t open her eyes, and even if she did, she didn’t realize it, because the blackness was so complete, so totally enveloping.

Then, something even more terrifying started to happen. She had been simply standing there, allowing him to operate inside of her brain, but suddenly…she felt as if the Force itself was being drained from her body. If there was one thing to make her freak out, it was feeling what was essentially her life’s basis, her power, being leeched out of her. She whimpered and clawed desperately on the outside, but on the inside of her head, she was petrified, trapped in one spot. She began to tumble end over end, as if in a dream, but there was no knee-jerk reaction or inner ear reaction…she continued to fall, for how long she didn’t know.

At some point she stopped falling. She didn’t hit anything, no bottom of the pit…she simply stopped falling. Something was in the distance…a pair of luminescent, dull grey lights. It approached, and slowly grew into a silhouette of a woman…of herself. Jodi stared for a moment as it grew clearer…it seemed weirdly perfect, as if a doll, with glazed eyes and a plastic face. But it was undeniably a copy of herself. As the other Jodi’s lightsabers flew to her hands, the true Jodi did the same, realizing that the Force was with her in the dream…what had happened before was a strange happenstance, but it didn’t seem to affect her here.

After a moment of silence, Jodi realized something. My weaknesses…what better way to discover them than by fighting myself? With that, she used the Force to propel herself at the copy, keeping her body low as she aimed a diagonal slash with her right saber at her head. With the left hand, she kept it raised in a slightly defensive way, slightly angled in a way that kept the blade raised in front of her chest and head.

 

[Dread]

It would be as if a dark angel was overlooking her shoulder, peering down from the darkness to watch and guide her. Ramnous' voice would take over her mind again, dominating but softer then usual so she may keep tabs on her battle without too much distraction. "There is a difference between you and your copy, let me know when you discover what..." It was straight forward, but vague at the same time. Something would be off, and it would have purpose for being off, even if his pupil would not understand why at first.

As if the mirror copy could sense everything, she instantly reacted to the womens first move. With enhanced speed by the forces might inside her muscles, her right hand would swing out, fully stressed by extension of it's length upwards to knock the womens blade to the side. With a twist of the womens body she would side step in her arms speed. As her arm went out to block the slash her body would move the same way, putting herself to the right side of the women. Because the women was lower her left lightsaber would swing back with full length then swing up and under the other women for a clear cut of her ribs close to her hips.

 

[TheIronLotus]

Jodi was still in a bit of shock at how strange the situation was when her lightsaber was batted out of the way by her carbon copy. As she sidestepped in, her back was exposed, but she couldn’t attempt a slash for concern over her own safety – instead, she moved her left lightsaber from its previous position, swiping downwards in a slight arc, stopping several inches after she knocked it downwards. Jodi then continued the momentum she’d built up from moving to one side to put herself behind the copy, bringing the right lightsaber back to bear after it had been knocked aside in an upward diagonal slash from the other Jodi’s back of her knees to her left hip. She brought the left lightsaber back to its previous blockings stance and moved her foot in front of the copies own foot, trying to yank backwards. If this succeeded, she would likely fall face-first from the tripping motion.

While she did this, she thought about what her master said. A difference? Maybe that she’s the Coyote Ugly version of me, she projected into her own subconscious, thinking her master would hear. Or maybe it’s more that…she seemed to know what I was going to do…and this is an exercise in weakness…there's no way she's perfect though.

 

[Dread]

((OOC: Try not to make too many moves at once))

Simultaneously, the copy would loosen her grip on both her lightsabers and swing back both to point the other way. Again, like copying each others timing, the right blade would go slanted sideways across her own back - just above it - and with extra stress her wrist would flick back. It was done in order to block the other Jodi's lightsaber attacking her lower body. The left lightsaber would simply stab backwards elbow bent then straightened out, aimed at the other Jodi's face in order to force her to block the line of sight and possibly step back.

 

[TheIronLotus]

((Oh snap, I think I accidentally combined two of the things I wanted to do at once. I made a post, then just kinda started over after I’d already done things and I wound up swinging my lightsaber AND leg. My bad. >_<))

In a rare moment, Jodi noticed that she was in a terribly awkward position. The other Jodi had already blocked her strike as if she knew exactly what was going to happen, and she’d managed a stab at her face as well. Jodi was already moving slightly to the left, so she had to roll her neck at the same time as blocking with the left lightsaber. She managed to knock the stab aside, but she also lost her balance somewhat, nearly falling to the ground. She took an awkwardly long couple of steps back and reset her feet, readying the lightsabers in a more defensive stance so that she could reevaluate the situation. While she did this, she decided to take a risk, allowing pure dark Force energy to flow to her fingertips. She didn’t know the technique well, but when the other Jodi next attacked, she would be ready to do what she could in retaliation.

She knows everything I’m going to do, thought Jodi helplessly, eyes wide. She wasn’t sure what would happen if she got killed in her own mind, but she didn’t like the idea at all. Master, what is this?

 

[Dread]

"Look upon what you could be, and see what you are now..."

Copy Jodi stood only in waiting now, as if frozen in time after her last strike. It was unlike what you would expect from her form - but it was in the moment that time stopped that he wanted his student to think. If this Jodi was stronger, in what way was she stronger? Did she truly know all ahead of time? And in that he hoped his student would find a revelation on her own. If she would still could not find her own weaknesses, unable to break past her own blindness, then he would have to press her harder.

 

[TheIronLotus]

Jodi stared for a moment at her copy. She was literally unmoving, a statuesque depiction of all that Jodi could someday be.

“Her lightsaber form, she uses it to an extent that is ridiculous, but there is something else. Besides her bodily capabilities.”

She continued staring, taking a couple steps closer. Suddenly, she remembered what her Master had once said, about reaching out with Force empathy to others during battle and its usefulness, of how it could help predict the opponent’s movement…

“She is in full control of not only her swordsmanship, which I am not, but also she reaches out to the opponent to sense what they are wanting to do…she uses the Force in a way that I do not yet,” she guessed.

 

[Dread]

Then he would smile as she kept guessing, not answering, forcing her to keep going. Each time she would think of things she could not do was each time his exercise seemed to be successful. With the smile painted onto his face beginning to fade as Jodi's comments did, the Jodi copy would suddenly start to flicker. With the flickering there would be a large amount of fog around her, then bolts from every which way. She would turn, her boots gliding on the floor as if she was floating - then face the other Jodi, grey eyes locking in competition.

 

[TheIronLotus]

Jodi stared for several moments, her eyes widening in realization as the copy flickered. When they locked eyes, she felt a sudden surge of inspiration, knowing exactly what she lacked in comparison to the copy.

“I am not her,” she said softly, but with conviction this time. She began to take steps forward, her eyes burning with fire…with envy. “Not yet. But I will be. I will become what this imposter is…no, I will become more.”

She finally lunged forwards, her limbs powered by the Force. She moved faster than she ever had before, remembering what her master had said the first time they’d met, about how her exaggerated movements were more suited against someone who also used Ataru…which her copy actually was.

She raised her lightsaber as if to start a slashing motion, but suddenly leapt, throwing herself to the copy’s right side. As she did so, she used both of her lightsabers to slice in an X-motion focused at the false Jodi’s midriff. By the time her body was exposed due to the move’s open nature, she would already be past the copy – and hopefully, since she’d be busy blocking, she’d either have to step too far back to slash at her legs, or be too busy blocking to do anything else. If she landed, she would go into a sideways roll, finishing the movement in a three point stance, one lightsaber hilt horizontally on the ground and the other at the ready.

 

[Dread]

"YES!" The sound of his booming voice would attempt to roar loudly in her head, taking over all sound outside of her.

As the real Jodi leaped, she would be reminded that this is simply a illusion, and she was inside of it, still a figment in his illusions projection. The copy would hold out both her hands in the air and send out jolts of lightening in every way from her body. Soon the blackness would turn into pure light, everywhere lightening would cover to no bounds. As Jodi's true body was unconscious on the floor, submitted into his will - within her masters arms, he would send real lightening through her body. Inflicting true pain before letting his release over her mind.

"That is enough...for now."

 

[TheIronLotus]

The resounding noise of her master’s voice was bittersweet – even though she realized that she had succeeded somehow in this par of her training, it was so loud it made her wince, even in the dream-like state. The lightning that surged towards her was violent and bright, and she tried to adjust her mind to absorb some of it, but somehow…it didn’t work.

Jodi grit her teeth as the lightning coursed through her. For some reason, she couldn’t stop the copy’s Force abilities, no matter how hard she tried. She shook, darkness tearing at the creases of her vision, even though light surrounded her, before she finally realized something – the lightning wasn’t coming from the vision.

It was coming from Master Ramnous himself.

With a few last twitches, she passed out…

[some time later]

Her vision was blurry as she came to. Jodi slowly began to reorient herself as she sat up, rubbing her eyes in a weak effort to make them open wider. Not only did she feel like shit, but she probably looked the part as well.

She stung in several parts all over her body, but she dared not say it lest her Master…right. Her Master. Jodi stared at him for several seconds, imagining various scenarios in her head…using Force pull to rip his windpipe out of his throat and beat him over the head with it, or maybe tying him down and draining the life right out of him. Or maybe…actually thanking him for giving her what she wanted, albeit not exactly in the way she expected. Of course, the way she didn’t expect was starting to quickly become the way she should expect; just something to keep in mind for future reference.

“That was quite a display, Master Ramnous,” she said, standing finally, ignoring the nails that were being driven inside of her head. “Admittedly, I’m not sure that I enjoyed the whole of it…but I learned, at least. Whoever said learning had to be fun?” She paused a bit longer, blinking. She had passed out…how long, she was uncertain, but at least for an hour or so. “How long have I been in this disheveled pile of mediocrity, Master?”