The Rebel Faction

[OOC: Skygge: Sorry, we must have been writing our posts at the same time...I think chronologically I'm behind you, since you're at the end of fight, and i've just started. This post should bring us level. Sorry, it's not great...think i've got writers' block!]

IC:

Unaware of the saber's effect of attracting the beasts, Ithron was therefore unaware that he had made himself the first, and therefore the primary, target. At first, he swung the saber like a stick, beating them as if it was a sporting game, where one had to hit the ball as far as possible.

Suddenly, one of them ducked beneath his primitive guard and ran round to attack him from behind. Before it could, Ithron felt the heat of another saber only inches from his back, and the dying scream of a garral.

"You fucking OWE me," Jehain shouted, himself being attacked from all sides. Ithron smiled. Was this soldiers' camaraderie?

Beating off the beasts with skillful sabre strokes, he continued: "Ithron....thought of using the Force?! You're using your saber like a stick. Slice it. Ease it where you want it to go."

Taking Jehain's advice, Ithron started to reach out with the Force, and let his hand relax. Instantly, he found he could make his saber go to wherever the beast was going to be. A garral jumped at him from his right hand side, and spinning on his heel and slicing, he easily dismembered it.

Fighting back to back, the two apprentices finished the fight. In fairness, it wasn't skillful work. Once he had the hang on the saber, Ithron found he could control it reasonably well.

As the fight was over, Ithron deactivated his saber, and watched as the apprentice who had been watching him earlier walked over to the knight.

"Master, your weapon."

She brought her own? Just who the hell is she? Ithron thought, irked that someone should be getting the attention of the knight like that.

Following Ithron's gaze, Jehain snorted. "Should have seen her fight. She'd chop your legs off before you knew what had hit you."

"Hmm" Ithron just stood and watched.

Something to deal with later, he thought.

For a brief moment after Necros had pronounced his condemnation of those without patience, Ithron considered protesting - a look at the Knight's eyes ensured that he changed his mind.

I don't need a sabre anyway, he thought. Briefly closing his eyes, he located a piece of wood - no longer than a metre - and caused it to fly gently toward him with the Force. Holding it firmly in his right hand he leapt towards the first remote, intent on smashing it. He knew they weren't built incredibly strongly, and a firm bash across the top should deactivate it.

As he mentally targeted the drone and moved his hand back to swing, a second drone, flying past him at high speed, unleashed its laser at him. The blast connected with his side.

Stumbling to the ground, Ithron felt his sides burning. The pain wasn't enough to seriously injure, but it could certainly burn the flesh. Anger flashed through his mind. Turning to engage the second remote, the first blasted the back of the left knee, causing him to collapse to the floor. Lying there, the second drone took the opportunity to strike his body once more. He could feel his skin burning up.

Looking around, he noticed Necros watching proceedings with a calm air, occasionally watching this apprentice or that for longer. Suddenly, he turned and looked at Ithron - his face smiling and yet devoid of any humour.

You will learn patience, young Apprentice, he seemed to be saying. The easy way, or the hard way.

Forcing himself to his knees, Ithron picked up the stick again and held in out in front. The two remotes were circling him now - the others had found more prey - and appeared to be waiting. As he finally got to his feet, one of the remotes fired a shot straight at his torso. Throwing himself to the side, Ithron dodged the blast and landed heavily on a burn mark. Shouting out in pain, he realised he was being beaten to a pulp by the two remote drones.

Rolling away from a second blast, Ithron again clasped his hand against the stick and stood. Rather than run at them, though, he waited and watched. He moved himself to keep them both in view as much as was possible. He used the force to watch them, and to see where they were. Around each drone was a small sphere of light. Before it moved one way, the sphere extended in that direction - presumably, with practice, one could tell where the remote would go in the future.

As the drones fired, he dodged, drawing them in closer. It was a careful game - if he moved back too far, they didn't follow, and if he didn't move back far enough, they stayed where they were and reminded him of their presence with a laser blast. Sweating now from the concentration of trying to outwit the drones, he felt himself getting frustrated.

Not now. There'll be a time for that...

Finally, the two of them were in range - with one either side of him. Standing up to his full height, he saw one drone charge its laser for a head shot. Allowing the force to control his reflexes, Ithron ducked at the moment the drone fired.

The laser blast sailed harmlessly over his head, and impacted against the second drone.

Grinning but with the brief encounter not yet over, Ithron allowed the anger and frustration to fill him once more. He hadn't realised the effort he was making in keeping it under control until that moment. He swung the stick and smashed it over the first drone. It fell to the ground with lights flickering. As it landed, Ithron kicked it and the lights died.

Breathing hard, and with the sweat dripping off his forehead, he allowed himself a smile. Turning to see the others, he noticed that the ones with lightsabers had made short work of the drones. Mira in particular seemed to have no trouble. Jehain, on the other hand, had also been one of those not allowed to use his sabre. Ithron could see he had been hit multiple times and was clearly in serious pain.

Turning away from his injured comrade, unable to meet his eye, Ithron knew he could have prevented that, if only he had worked with his friend, and not alone. He felt sick - he had destroyed two of the remotes, but the other seven apprentices had had to deal with the other eight. He hadn't given them a second thought.

Feeling the effects of the laser blast, Ithron stumbled towards the Knight. Kneeling before him, but not with quite the same reverence with which he had knelt before Master Vance, Ithron spoke.

"Master, it is done." He took no joy in that report, for he felt in himself that he had failed. "I must also humbly tell you that I neglected to count the number of hits I took."

Vance had been unimpressed by Ithron's reply to his question. It had been one of the more simplistic exercises that the Sith Master gave to potential Apprentices; and while there was no right, or wrong, answer, it still remained that some form of an answer was required for Vance to judge the potential candidate.

None-the-less, Ithron had proved, if anything, that he was naturally cautious. While this sense of secrecy might have been a much required attribute of any Sith, it could also become one of the largest of flaws; for by becoming so patient, so cautious, one could become stagnant and lose all aspects of usefulness...

The Sith Master decided to speak after a long few moments had passed, following Ithron's answer, or lack thereof.

"I did not request to know your thoughts on the Force," Vance began, his voice showing his slowly increasing impatience. "The question I asked was not a precusor for you to begin explaining your thoughts on what the Force is, whether it be an omnipresent entity or not. Instead, however, I asked you for a simple answer to an almost straightforward question... selflessness or selfishness. One or the other, no seeming middle crest to balance upon."

Reaching out, Vance ran his gloved hand gently over the temple wall. He felt the darkness around him, the echoes coming from the very structure itself. For a moment he allowed himself to travel the passages offered by the Force, using the temple peak as the directional focal point of the mental journey; by far and large, the Sith Master caught feelings of the future, senses of the past, and inclinations of the present... much would be ahead of the Sith, both for the individual and brotherhood, and only those with the determination to survive would do so.

Some believed the instinct for continued existence was natural; however Vance believed that survival, for those that walked the path of the Dark Side, was compared in a different light - much like the use of the Force between the Jedi and Sith. Like mastering the knowledge, use and understanding of the unknown power that flowed throughout the galaxy, so was the struggle to attain the ever increasing echelons of survivalist nature... after all, the higher the stakes, the harder one would try to come out the victor… yet very few held the capacity to continue beyond the intensifying level of endurance called for.

It would eventually be seen as to whether Ithron held such inner strength. And if he was to succeed in his path, in his own personal journey, he would have to begin taking definitive stances on the many choices that were to lay before him.

"Your answer shall suffice... for now," Vance continued, returning to the temple, to where the two stood. "However, I expect that in the future you shall be able to answer truthfully without fear of the repercussions of my judgement. I cannot teach one who shows both fear and respect; yet do not become arrogant in the knowledge that I do not expect you to fear me from this point onward... for you will, if I deem it so."

There was movement from the Apprentice gathering. The general sense that emanated from the group told Vance of the untimely arrival of Necros. This meant that Ithron's private lesson was at an end, for the moment, which meant the Sith Master would once again return to simply paying attention to the Sith as a whole.

"Return to your brothers," Vance said simply, dismissing the Apprentice without so much as a look. "I will call you when I decide you worthy... until then, continue with your brethren."

Pulling his cloak tighter around himself, Vance watched as Ithron returned to the other Sith. The boy had the potential, but it remained to be seen if he would be able to grasp that potency and use it to its fullest degree…

…if he had the capacity to continue beyond.

Injured and sabreless, Ithron listened to the Knight speak.

Learning to visualise and direct the Force? he thought. At last. Something I can do.

Using the Force in such a way was one of the things Ithron had learned as a Jedi. Earlier in his training, he had been pleasantly surprised to find that the skill of visualising the Force hadn't left him. In fact, he had been meditating doing that earlier when it first struck him to approach Master Vance Jas.

Smiling, he knelt and closed his eyes. Allowing the Force to flow through his body he allowed himself to relax, and put the pain from his wounds out of his mind. The pain was still there - it was simply that it had no power to affect him any more.

Breathing deeper, he felt himself fall further into a meditative state. He could sense the Force flowing all around him. Just as earlier, he felt the presence of the Knight, the other Apprentices, and the woods. He couldn't sense the Sith Master though.

I suppose he's only seen when he wants to be. Ithron thought.

This was as far as he had got as a Jedi, allowing the Force to flow with him. Earlier, during the run, he had managed to move the Force to where he wanted - in that case it had been his legs - but it hadn't been easier, and it hadn't been controlled and disciplined. It had been random drawing of energy, rather than careful siphoning.

Finding to his surprise that he could, with an effort of Will, change the density of the Force around him, Ithron concentrated on making a small but dense concentration around his left hand. As he did, he could sense what could only be described as a sound. It seemed that as he gathered a small dense region of the Force in one place, a tone steadily grew in volume. It was uncertain and changed in pitch as the region grew or shrunk in size. Somehow, Ithron had always been aware of the 'sound', and yet had never listened. It was an odd sensation, like looking at your own arm for the first time.

Briefly distracted, Ithron saw the Sith Knight. The aura around him practically hummed. Ithron could see the Force density changing and flowing from place to place. None of it was forced or exerted; it flowed of its own will, like water finding its way to low ground. The rising and falling of pitch precisely matched the flow. The sound was dynamic, and worked on so many levels - it seemed to involve all the life around him, and yet it was simple and could be understood.

The Music of the Force......It's beautiful, thought Ithron. He momentarily wondered what the Force around Master Jas would have 'sounded' like. Practically an orchestra, he thought.

He was learning now why the Master had dismissed him. "I know of the Force" had he said? How naive! He knew now that he knew only a fraction of what there was to know. He had even had the opportunity to experience the Force around a Sith Master, and he hadn't even thought - he hadn't even realised.

Turning his mind to his task, he recollected the Force around his left hand. Again he heard the sound. It was but a shrill warbling compared to the Sith Knight's aura, and for a moment Ithron felt annoyed at his own inability to control the Force as effectively as an experienced Knight. He turned all his will on holding the Force density in place, and watched in dismay as it fell apart with a crash of sound. The harder he tried to hold it, the faster it flowed away, until very soon, it was gone.

Opening his eyes, Ithron dragged his body out of its meditative state in his frustration. Suddenly, he remembered the Sith Knight, stood there so calmly. He didn't try and control the Force - he let it hold itself where he wanted. This time when he meditated, he tried that. Quickly he focussed the Force on his left hand, and then, with all the skill of a small child removing the bucket from over a sandcastle, he removed his concentration. To his glee, the Force stayed mostly stayed where it was. It was slowly losing density and within minutes it was gone but at least it was a start.

Smiling inwardly and outwardly, Ithron managed to gather the Force around his two hands. Opening his eyes to speak his success aloud, he saw the meditating form of Jehain, and kept silent.

Real smart Ithron, he thought to himself. A few patterns drawn in the Force and you think you're the sodding Emperor? You weren't so clever a few minutes ago

Vance watched, amused, as the newer Apprentice began to deviate from the lessons being taught. At first, it may have seemed like a potential moment to advance beyond the other Apprentices; but Mira soon discovered the true error of her ways, as she was caught in the backfire of her own power exploration. Stalking toward the girl laying on the ground, whimpering with curses not suitable for a child her age, the Sith Master shook his head. As he came to a stop, Vance let out a long, tension filled breath...

"It seems that you have witnessed, first hand, the mistake of attempting to harness power greater than you can control," Vance spoke, his voice low, though he made sure those around were paying attention through the subtle use of Force influence. "The pain you feel now, as a result of your meddling with more advanced uses of the Force, shall be nothing compared to the eventual death you will sustain by your own hands if you continue pushing your limits in such a manner...

"I am telling you, as a Sith Master and head of this Order, that you cannot control the elements you seem so eager to muster. And if you truly wish to experience the full power of the Force so desperately, I will be only too happy to provide."

Holding out his left arm, Vance narrowed his eyes as he directed the Force through his body. He called upon the reserve within himself, focusing the agitation and annoyance he felt, harnessing the rage he bottled up with nearly every passing moment. The Sith Master's palm began to sizzle, the leather glove he wore crackling with the first hints of electric flow; while at the same time, Vance grasped his lightsaber with his right hand, activating the blade.

With a scowl, Vance sent the collection of Force energy outward, a wave of Force Lightning arcing out toward the prone, wounded Apprentice. Vance ensured the power of the attack was adequate to require immediate medical attention in its aftermath, however it would not kill the girl, and he was of a control level that meant he was very, very adept in such a use...

The lightsaber, however, was held in readiness, for if Mira somehow managed to evade his Force Lightning, she would then find herself on the receiving end of a clean swipe with the azure blade.

"Feel the bittersweet irony of power you are so eager to become proficient with, yet cannot hope to control at this pitiful moment in your training," Vance sneered, his patience finally ending with the Apprentice who sought more than she could attain...

...This one would learn the hard way, it seemed.