MOTF Book II: Ascension Chapter 3

Dylan stood in the middle of a room at the Sith Prime Academy on Korriban, hunched over staring at a large metalic sphere sitting on the ground in front of him. Dylan wasn’t sure of its exact weight, but based on the effort it had taken him to roll it from the wall of the room from where he had been practicing, Dylan had to guess it weighed six or seven, maybe eight times as much as he did.

Glancing around the room, Dylan saw that several of the other students were scattered about, lifting objects of various masses into the air with the force, though none of the other students were experimenting with a weight quite as massive as Dylan’s. Fernin and Tormax were on one end of the room, standing on either side of a ball half the radius of Dylan’s, both exerting telekinetic pressure on it, seeing who could push it closer to the other person. Shorya on the other hand, was holding three metalic orbs in the air, the largest one being the same size and mass as Fernin’s and Tormax’s, and the  other two being half that mass. Shorya was moving the spheres through the air in intricate patterns, sometimes as if she were juggling with two invisible arms, and other times like the larger orb was a planet and the two other orbs were orbiting it like moons. Even Gingus was manipulating a mass slightly smaller than the one Dylan had, with one hand extended as he casually kept it suspended in the air, with the rest of his body facing away from it with an almost disinterested expression on his face.

A Sith Master named Darth Galavar made her way around the room, sometimes giving advice to various apprentices as they practiced their telekinetic abilities. As the Force usage instructor of the Prime Academy, Dylan had found her teachings on how to tap into the Dark Side and wield many of its abilities invaluably useful at first, but since then, Dylan had learned to tune her out when she spoke. Now that he was one of the top students at the Academy, statements like “Use your angaaaahhh,” “focus,” and “gooooooooood,” weren’t really very helpful pieces of advice, and were more of a distraction to him than anything else.

Dylan scowled with annoyance at the teacher’s pretension. He would think a Sith Master would have more useful information on the Dark Side than basic instructions, and truths about the Dark Side that Dylan already knew to be true. He let that annoyance feed him. He then extended both of his hands towards the orb, extending his feelings towards the orb through the Force, feeling the invisible grip of his mind close in around it.

He saw many of the other apprentices eyeing him with interest, each one hoping he failed. He also saw Shorya, Fernin, and Tormax amongst those apprentices, but unlike them, they were looking on with support, and Dylan saw that reflected in their eyes, and felt it through the Force. Dylan, like always, was proud to call them his friends. Many of the other Sith Apprentices were hoping he would fail, but they were hoping he would succeed. While Dylan felt love for his friends, he felt nothing but hatred and contempt for the other apprentices. “I hate all of these people,” Tormax had once told him. Dylan took his hatred of the other apprentices and suffused his own will with it.

Calling forth on his passion and the power of the Force, Dylan exerted his will upon the large metalic orb, causing it to shudder. Slowly but purposefully, Dylan drew his hands upwards, and slowly but surely, the orb rose through the air until its horizontal circumference was at Dylan’s eye level. Dylan felt his mind strain as he held the orb in the air, his arms quivering as he kept them extended. He could feel the surprise and envy of the other students through the Force, and he let that fuel him further.

Calling forth on even more power, Dylan continued to press upwards, almost grunting as he did so. This time, the orb ascended faster, rising through the air until it was almost brushing against the ceiling ten feet above. A triumphant smile crossed Dylan’s face as he heard a gasp of astonishment from somewhere in the room.

It was then that Dylan felt a sensation through the Force. It was Darth Galavar reaching out to him and the other Apprentices through the Force, letting them know their lesson was over, and that Darth Vashek would be expecting them in five minutes. Slowly, Dylan guided the sphere to the wall on the far side of the room, slowly letting it descend as he did so, before depositing it on the floor.

He took one look at the other apprentices before being the first to walk through the stone archway that was the entrance and exit to that particular training room. Shorya began to approach him. Dylan, feeling her approach through the Force, deliberately slowed his pace enough for her to catch up, but did not stop or start walking towards her, to avoid drawing unwanted attention from the other apprentices.

“Dylan that was amazing!” Shorya said as she caught up to him.

“Thanks Shorya,” Dylan said, blushing slightly as he turned his head to meet her gaze. Though he had learned to control his anger, his hatred, and his fear, his love for Shorya was still beyond his ability to control, and part of him liked it that way, though he wished he could admit his feelings to her. “You were really impressive in there as well.”

“None of the other apprentices noticed,” Shorya said, seemingly disappointed.

Dylan turned to look her dead in the eyes as he said his next few words. “Well blast them! They’re karking idiots!”

“I see you’ve taken a liking to the profanities of the outside Galaxy,” Shorya observed with a chuckle.

“It’s true though,” Dylan said. “The other apprentices are too foolish to recognize your power in the Dark Side. They believe the only way to best somebody is to crush them. They have no respect for the subtleties of the Force, the subtleties you are trying hard to master, and finding great success with.”

Dylan paused for a second. “I’ve noticed what you do when the other apprentice’s are looking,” he admitted. “I’ve seen you reach into their minds and toy with them.”

“You have?” Shorya asked, incredulous that he could sense something so subtle. Dylan of course, paid more than enough attention to her in his spare time to notice such things.

“Yes, and let me tell you something,” Dylan replied, taking a step closer. “They are nothing to you. Almost every other apprentice at this academy is nothing to you, and those that aren’t will be eventually. You are stronger than they are, and you have the potential to become something greater than they could ever hope to be.”

“You’re just saying that,” Shorya replied.

“No I’m not,” Dylan said, placing a hand on her shoulder and staring deep into her dark brown eyes. “I mean every word I say to you.”

Dylan walked with Shorya through the archway into the lightsaber training room just in time to hear the names of those participating in the first sparring match.

“The first match of the day,” Darth Vashek announced. “Will be between Dylan and Gingus.”

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Dylan stared into the pale, unfeeling eyes of Gingus as the two Apprentices stood four meters away from each other. Both of them held the hilt to a training lightsaber, but neither of them were activated. Gingus’s pallid face reflected no emotion, but in the Force, Dylan could feel one emotion, and only one; hate, cold uncompromising hate.

Dylan could not help but feel a twinge of fear shiver through his body and mind when Vashek announced their names. Dylan knew as well as anybody else did that Gingus was the top student at the Prime Academy, completely unsurpassed in both his bladework, and his telekinetic prowess.

It had been two weeks since Dylan had brutally defeated Yavanok in the dueling ring, before even more brutally beating him into unconsciousness, this of course, being after Yavanok tried to kill him with a pair of hidden shikkars. Since then, Dylan had bested a handful of other opponents in the dueling ring, most being more skilled than the last. His most recent victory was against Harvul, one of Gingus’s “accomplices,” so to speak. Dylan had defeated the wookiee Sith apprentice in a hard fought, barely won duel only four days earlier, and since then, he had trained and developed his technique further, learning a few new Form V sequences, and several new moves. He did not think it would be enough to save him against Gingus however.

As the two stared at each other, still unmoving, Dylan pondered what to do in his mind. He figured his best chance at beating him was to catch Gingus off guard. Dylan stared into the cold hateful glare Gingus was looking at him with, and he let a similar hatred fill his own mind. It gave him focus, made him stronger. Deciding that now was as good a time as any, Dylan surprised all the apprentices, including himself, by being the first to attack.

Dylan leapt forward and activated his lightsaber in one swift, lightning quick moment, immediately bringing his blade down at Gingus’s head as hard as possible in a Djem So move called the Falling avalanche. Gingus’s blade was up just in time to deflect the blow, but Dylan immediately followed up with three more vicious and hate filled power blows. Gingus fell into a retreat, though not clumsily, as every other apprentice would’ve. Gingus stepped back quickly, deflecting Dylan’s strikes at angles somewhat in the direction of their momentum, though still angled away from the area in which he twisted his own body, masterfully blocking and evading Dylan’s blows at the same time.

Dylan took notice as Gingus stepped back, quicker and further than he had been falling back before. A fool would’ve mistaken this for a sign of their own superiority, but Dylan knew better. He had not increased the intensity of his attack, and he had initially caught Gingus relatively off guard. The only plausible explanation in Dylan’s mind was that Gingus had already adapted to his sudden attack, and was in fact drawing him into a trap. Realizing this, Dylan stopped his advance and took a step back, just in time to see a crimson blade stab through the air in front of him where his abdomen had been a second ago.

As soon as Dylan and the other apprentices realized what was happening, Gingus flew into a furious offensive. Using the move set of Ataru, Gingus leapt forward in a Hawk-Bat Swoop, striking twice at Dylan with blinding speed, forcing him to fall back as he desperately and barely blocked each strike, before falling back a couple of feet in the signature retreat of the Hawk-Bat Swoop.

Before Dylan could respond with an attack of his own, he saw the apprentice with flame colored hair and deathly pale skin leap forwards into the air, tucking his limbs in as his body flipped towards Dylan, and lashing out with his blade as his arms came around to the front. Dylan could feel the heat of the crimson blade as he leapt back, watching it split the air less than a couple of inches away from his face before being yanked back to Gingus’s side as he landed.

Gingus attempted the same move again, but Dylan threw his body to the ground, rolling beneath Gingus’s airborne body, and coming back up on his own feet as Gingus landed on his, both with their backs to each other. Immediately after winding up back on their feet, both Dylan and Gingus spun around quickly to engage their opponent, hoping to be the person who struck first. It was Gingus, who transitioned into an incredibly aggressive sequence, striking at Dylan with several blindingly fast short stabs.

Dylan had seen the Saber Swarm before when sparring with Tormax, but Gingus’s application of it was blinding speed and malignant grace made manifest in the form of a crimson blade lashing out like a serpent on copious amounts of glitterstim. Dylan was forced to fall into a quick retreat, desperately racing back as Gingus flew forward to close whatever gap he tried to create. Channeling the power of the Force through his body through the strength of his fury and hatred, Dylan was able to deflect all of Gingus’s strikes to the side, though only barely.

Midway through Gingus’s sequence, Dylan desperately slapped Gingus’s blade to the side and pounced forward, suffering a searing hot glancing blow from his opponent’s blade on his left shoulder to do so, then swung his blade with all of his might at Gingus’s neck. The pale skinned Sith apprentice was able to bring his lightsaber back in front of him in time to block Dylan’s blow, though the force of the impact threw the top half of his body backwards. Rather than collapse, Gingus rolled with the motion, throwing his legs out and flipping into a back handspring, flipping through the air, bouncing off of his hands, then landing and bouncing off of his feet, flipping through the air again, and landing on his feet a final time five meters away from Dylan.

There was an eerie silence as Dylan and Gingus stared at each other, neither making a sound. The two rivals simply eyed each other like predators seeking their next meal. Dylan’s face was contorted in rage, and Gingus’s was almost devoid of emotion. Dylan did not need the Force to feel the tension in the room.

Dylan sneered as he drew on his rage, letting the pain of the blow he had already received on his shoulder feed his fury. Hate coursed through Dylan as he called upon the Force, using it to strengthen his body and sharpen his mind. Then, with the power of the Dark Side surging through him, Dylan leapt forward and transitioned into a brutal sequence of power blows, letting his hate fuel his strength.

In almost a mirror image, Gingus flew at Dylan at the same time. Instead of a series of power blows however, Gingus unleashed a devastating sequence of offensive flurries and fast-paced acrobatics, faster than Dylan had seen him move before. As their assaults collided, Gingus twisted and twirled, building enough momentum to deflect Dylan’s assaults far enough to the side that he could easily maneuver his body away from them. The result was that Dylan’s blade could not touch him. The same could not be said the other way around however.

Dylan threw himself backwards, falling into a frantic and desperate retreat as he struggled to mount a counteroffensive. In less than three seconds, all pretense of mounting a counterattack quickly vanished, as Dylan tried desperately to block and parry each of his opponent’s strikes in time. The next couple of seconds were a blur of motion that ended with him crying out in pain as Gingus slashed his blade across his chest.

Dylan staggered back as Gingus struck him twice more, once in the right knee, and once along the left side of his body, twirling his blade in elaborate circular motions. Then, suddenly, Gingus was cartwheeling through the air towards him. Dylan was completely helpless to do anything as Gingus, his body now upside down and twisting through the air, swung his blade straight into his face. Dylan felt his entire face light up in pure agony as his body slammed back into the ground, just as Gingus finished his acrobatic maneuver in a deliberately exaggerated motion, landing crouched on his feet a couple of meters behind Dylan with both arms splayed out to his sides.

A dizzying feeling overcame Dylan as his thoughts began to drift into unconsciousness. His knee throbbed, the left side of his body felt like it was on fire, and a piercing agony shot through his shoulder. It was his face that hurt worst of all. He felt an excruciating and searing pain all over his face, as he heard his skin smoldering. Agony filled him as a terrible headache plagued him. Then, Dylan let the bittersweet darkness of sleep envelope him, drowning out his pain and pulling a thick curtain over the outside world. For the first time in his life, Dylan’s fury had not been enough.

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Shorya watched over Dylan as his body laid sprawled out over his bed. She was back in their student quarters, the room Dylan, Shorya, Fernin, and Tormax shared during their time training at the Prime Academy. It wasn’t overly luxurious, but it was spacious enough for the four of them. Dylan’s bed was on the far end of the room, pressed into a corner, just the way he liked it.

Shorya’s was right next to his, with Tormax’s and Fernin’s on the other side of the room. Sometimes, she and Dylan would stay up all night until dawn, just talking. Sometimes they would talk about their new lives as Sith. They shared with each other the details of their growing power, with Shorya often talking about the control and magnitude of power she had in her force abilities, and Dylan sharing the details of the new Djem So moves and sequences he had been practicing, or the amount of weight he had been able to hoist into the air with his telekinetic power.

One favorite topic of Dylan’s whenever they talked about their new lives was his passion. Shorya found that Dylan greatly enjoyed sharing the details of his emotional states as he practiced wielding the power of the Dark Side. She liked listening to him share the intimate details of his relationship with the Dark Side. Sometimes she found it inspirational and took a few helpful tips from him, but most of the time, she just liked hearing him talk about his feelings, feeling like she knew him a little more intimately every time he talked to her.

Sometimes however, he would not talk with her about his triumphs as a Sith, but rather his insecurities and emotional turmoil. He had shared with her that he sometimes got paranoid, worried that the opponent’s he had vanquished would try to kill him at one point. He shared with her the self-doubt he sometimes had, wondering if he’d ever truly be able to surpass opponents such as Gingus. But above all else, Dylan had shared his grief about losing so many of his friends and family at once.

Shorya, being friends with the members of their squad that had perished, shared some of Dylan’s grief, but she could hardly imagine what the deaths of half of his family was putting him through. Feeling Dylan’s agony through the Force, Shorya was surprised he was this willing to share his feelings at all. It was then that she realized how much he truly trusted her, and all she wanted to do when she looked into his sad brown eyes was wrap her arms around him and embrace him, letting him know his trust in her was not misplaced. She wanted to be there for him as he had been there for her, the day she had lost almost all of her friends at the Shadikill coastal base that day. Her mind occasionally drifted back to that day, with the strangest combination of sadness and joy, knowing that many of her friends had died that day, but knowing she had made new ones, in the form of Dylan and his squad.

They talked at night so often, but this time, as Dylan lied in his bed, there was no talking. Just Dylan resting as Shorya watched. She knew he would recover, probably become stronger than he was before. Still though, it pained her to see him like this. On the outside, Dylan always appeared so confident, and in a sense, that was probably how he felt while training. When Dylan talked to her however, maybe he was confronting a less secure part of himself, but Shorya was able to deal with that, knowing as much through the Force as through looking into Dylan’s eyes that she helped him feel better, that she was there for him.

Now, however, he was lying unconscious in bed in front of her, after taking a severe beating in front of the other apprentices. Beneath a black shirt and pants, she knew several scorch marks were covered by bacta patches. His face however, required more medical attention. As soon as he had arrived in the medical center, he had received a series of bacta injections in the furrow Gingus’s blade had carved along the outside of his face. Afterwards, his wound had been coated in bacta salve. His face was indeed healing, and his skin recovering, but though his face was no longer the same scorched bloody mess it had been an hour and a half ago, there was still a large gash stretching across his features from next to his mouth, across the bridge of his nose, and across his forehead.

She wasn’t even sure if he would hear her if she spoke. She felt helpless, seemingly unable to do anything to help him. She then decided that at the very least, she could try to help him. Reaching out to him in the Force as she did so, Shorya extended her arm, and clasped Dylan’s hand in her own.

“Dylan,” she said. “I’m not sure if you can hear me right now, but I just want you to know that the other apprentices are beneath you. They can’t even imagine the kind of man you can become. You can become so much greater than any of them, even Gingus.”

Shorya felt something, though she wasn’t sure whether or not it was Dylan hearing her words, or his subconscious mind reacting to her reaching out to him through the Force.

After a brief pause, she gave his hand a squeeze and said, “I’m here for you.”

She felt Dylan’s hand squeeze her hand back as his eyelids slid open. Despite the appearance of the rest of his face, his beautiful brown eyes remained untouched by Gingus’s scorching training lightsaber. She stared into his eyes as he stared back into hers. “I know,” he replied. “Thank you.”

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Dylan stared into the red blade of his training lightsaber, and marveled at it’s metaphorical significance. The blade of a lightsaber was a conglomeration of fiery heat and immense energy focused and coalesced into a single unstoppable concentration of power, ready to tear through anything in its path. Capable of creating a nigh unstoppable wave of destruction in its wake.

But it was not the blade of a lightsaber that Dylan stared into, it was one of a training lightsaber, focused and burning hot, but not nearly as powerful as that of a true lightsaber. The Sith utilized training lightsabers of a higher blade intensity than Jedi. While a Jedi training blade could raise blisters and bruises, the training blade of a Sith could scorch and leave severe burns on the flesh, the likes of which could be treated with Bacta, though the pain was excruciating to say the least.

That being said, unlike a real lightsaber, the blade of a Sith training lightsaber could not rend flesh and bone, could not pierce the heart of an enemy, could not hew limbs off with a simple slash. That being said, a Sith training lightsaber was still deadly to an extent. Dylan had witnessed many an enemy suffer great pain under the strikes of his training lightsaber. He himself had felt the blazing heat of the blade strike his skin, about two hours back, scorching the points of contact black. Since then, bacta and Dylan’s own Innamortan physiology had healed the wounds, though he could still feel them in his memory. It had felt like a fire had been set in his flesh.

More than the pain was the humiliation, the shame of losing a fight, of having another being unquestionably assert their superiority over him. But there was something else. There was a spark, a glimmer of satisfaction to be obtained from that duel. Despite his obvious, almost seemingly predetermined failure, Dylan had done something every other apprentice could not. He had given Gingus a fight. Though almost the entire momentum of the fight had gone against him, Dylan felt that he had pressed Gingus once or twice in their short bout, however briefly.

If Dylan’s passion was his motivation, the driving force behind his yearning for self improvement, then the small amount of success against Gingus was his focus, the possibility of surpassing him an outcome to strive for. As Dylan speculated into the future, picturing the face of his rival in his mind, his fury was a tunnel of of power, and his ambition was his purpose, directing the tunnel towards Gingus’s defeat, an outcome Dylan sorely wished to see.

It was not wishing and hoping, however, that would bring Dylan’s goals to fruition. Standing before him were a dozen Sith training droids. Half of them were armed with stun blasters, and the other half, with training lightsabers. He was standing in the middle of a small training arena on Korriban.

Normally, these training arenas and droids weren’t permitted for use by students, but Dylan had managed to convince Darth Vashnek to allow him to use one for the remainder of the day. Dylan assumed it was because Vashnek was impressed by his determination, likely never having seen a student so eager to train for several hours only a couple hours after taking such a brutal beating, and though it was around 5 hours past midday, Dylan intended to train here until midnight before returning to the Prime Academy to sleep.

Dylan clapped his hands, and the six droids with blasters spread out along the edges of the perimeter. Of the six dueling droids, one was a more advanced model than the other five. Dylan had placed different settings on each of the droids. Each of the droids would be using a different form from Shii-Cho to Niman, with the advanced model programmed to mimic Ataru. These droids also began to spread out, but not quite as far, circling him and surrounding him from all different angles. Then, as Dylan activated the blade of his training lightsaber, the droids attacked.

The six droids on the perimeter of the arena opened fire, unleashing a volley of stunbolts. Trusting his instincts, Dylan twirled his lightsaber around himself, deflecting the bolts to the side with some familiar Shii-Cho blast deflection moves, as well as a few Soresu and Shien moves he had looked into in the past week.

As soon as he had deflected the first volley of stunbolts, the lightsaber training droids were upon him. The Ataru droid took the lead, charging at Dylan with the Shii-Cho droid and the Djem So droid on either flank. The Niman and Soresu droids were circling around on either flank, seeking to get at Dylan from an angle behind him, while the Makashi droid was staying back a respectable distance from the three droids charging at Dylan.

Dylan fell back into a slow retreat as the three droids reached him, blocking their strikes as the Ataru droid delivered an offensive at the front of his body, while the Shii-Cho and Djem So droid attacked his left and right flank respectively. The three droids were only droids. They did not truly feel the Force, unlike the other apprentices. But they did have the advantage of numbers, which was enough to drive Dylan back onto his back foot.

Meanwhile, the blast deflection training droids behind him continued to fire, while the other droids could not get a clear shot. Dylan took a few steps back, and twirled his blade, deflecting blasterfire from the three droids that could still get a clear shot at him. Realizing this, Dylan thrust an arm out, releasing a surge of Force energy from the palm of his hand, toppling the three droids over, before turning his attention back to the three dueling droids in front of him.

Suddenly, the Ataru droid leapt over Dylan’s head, landing on the other side of him as he engaged the Shii-Cho and Djem So droids. Taking the momentary advantage, Dylan empowered his limbs, and pushed the blade of the Djem So droid aside with far greater strength than it possessed, and felling the Shii-Cho droid with a series of brutal, but efficient slashes and stabs.

It was then that the Makashi droid caught up to the rest of them, engaging Dylan from one side as the Ataru droid engaged him from the other, both raining deadly assaults on him, but in different ways. One was a tempest of speed, the other a storm of deadly precision. It took Dylan effort to engage them both at the same time, but as he did it successfully, he felt a certain twinge of satisfaction. It was then that the Djem So droid rejoined the fray, and the Niman droid took the place of the fallen Shii-Cho droid. Strangely enough, the Soresu droid stood back, just observing the fight that played out before it.

Along either gap between the three attacking droids and the Ataru droid, two blaster wielding droids fired upon Dylan from one gap, while one fired upon Dylan from the other gap. Between the Ataru droid, the Makashi droid, the Niman droid, the Djem So droid, and the three remaining blaster wielding droids, Dylan was hard pressed to hold a solid defense against them. It was then that Dylan decided to turn the momentum of the fight around.

He called upon the memories of his pain at the hands of Gingus, the sting of his failure, and the thrill of the prospect of besting him in combat. Those feelings served as a spark of passion, a spark Dylan quickly fanned into a flame, into a fire, and finally into an inferno of power, just waiting to be unleashed. He channeled that power into his body, fueling his motions as he leapt towards the droids in front of him, sweeping his blade upwards, knocking the blades of the Niman and Makashi droids upwards, before kicking the Niman droid hard in its armored chassis, shattering metal with his foot as he blocked the strike of the Djem So droid with his blade.

Dylan then spun around to deflect a flurry of carefully calculated Ataru strikes from the Ataru droid, before leaping backwards and striking the crippled Niman droid in the head with his training lightsaber before leaping through the space it had once occupied. Finally free from being surrounded by the lightsaber training droids, Dylan was free to engage them offensively on one front, but not before dealing with the blaster wielding droids.

Dylan continued to retreat as he twirled his blade, deflecting several stun bolts away from his body, and even deflecting one into the solitary blaster wielding droid, knocking it over and deactivating it. As the four remaining dueling droids approached him, Dylan called upon his fury, and unleashed a wave of Force energy, staggering the droids back several feet.

Dylan took advantage of the temporary gap, reaching out with the force and hoisting both remaining dueling droids in the air, hurling one at the Ataru droid, and one in the back of the Makashi droid that was now advancing on him. The Ataru droid leapt further away from Dylan, and out of the way, but the Makashi droid was struck square in the back by one of the blaster wielding droids, sending a shower of sparks into the air as the droid fell forward, right onto Dylan’s swiftly outstretched blade.

The Djem So droid tried to retreat, but Dylan practically flew at it, unleashing a series of brutal slashes at it. The droid responded in its own form of Djem So, but it was no match for Dylan’s, and in less than two seconds, Dylan had eviscerated it with his training lightsaber, completely deactivating it.

It was then that the Ataru droid fell upon him, unleashing a fast paced sequence of strikes as Dylan swatted its attacks aside, ready to destroy it. But it was then that the Soresu droid actually did something, approaching to the side of the Ataru droid, providing it defensive support against Dylan’s offensive fury. The Ataru droid and the Soresu droid paired up, one striking at Dylan, and the other deflecting Dylan’s blows. The two droids had almost perfect coordination with each other. After three seconds of dueling, Dylan realized what the Soresu droid had been doing. It had been observing the techniques of both Dylan and the Ataru droid as they fought, mapping out the best supplementary techniques to utilize with the advanced droid as it fought against Dylan. The advanced droid itself was thriving off of the Soresu droid’s presence, ducking behind its defensive cover before lashing out again, utilizing the Hawk Bat Maneuver far more effectively than it was supposed to be done, because unlike most Ataru practitioners, this droid had a Soresu practitioner defending it from harm.

Dylan drew harder on his fury, pressing harder with his will as he called upon the force to guide his reflexes and empower his body. Dylan drove the two droids into a quick retreat under the sheer magnitude of his assault, while at the same time, deflecting volley after volley of stun bolts from the three droids he had knocked over at the beginning, who were now returning to their feet. He could’ve just as easily dispatched them again with the force, but he decided against it, preferring to test his abilities in a more profound way. Dylan continued to bat their stun bolts aside as he drove the Ataru and Soresu droids back further and further. Driving the full Force of his rage behind his blade, Dylan swung it in a circular motion, batting both the droid’s blades to the side, before throwing his foot up and catching the Soresu droid in the jaw, knocking it over and deactivating it.

Dylan then spun around, deflecting several more stun bolts as he did so, before spinning back around to meet the charge of the Ataru droid with far greater blade-work. As the Ataru droid attempted to mount an offensive against him, Dylan twirled his blade in a fluid riposte, easily deflecting all of its strikes to the side and responding in kind with his own blows. After two seconds, Dylan swung his blade hard in a circular motion, knocking the blade out of the Ataru droid’s hand before slashing his blade across the droid’s face.

Now all that was left were the three blaster wielding droids. Dylan yanked those towards him with the Force, using its power to force them to the ground, slowly applying pressure and forcing them into tight balls. They were completely unable to move at all, and Dylan knew he could’ve easily crushed them into balls of scrap if he wished. Satisfied, Dylan deactivated his training lightsaber, but not before staring into its blade again.

Dylan did indeed find a metaphorical connection between himself and a lightsaber. Dylan, as a Sith Apprentice, was much like a training lightsaber. His power wasn’t nearly as focused and lethal as it could be, but it was still lethal enough to deal some damage if applied the right way. The real lightsaber though, that represented what he could achieve. When he reached the highest levels of the Sith, when he ascended to the absolute top, when he became a true master of the Dark Side of the Force, Dylan’s passion would be searing hot, and focused and condensed into a concentration of pent up power, capable of unleashing unstoppable destruction upon that which laid in its path.

Dylan smiled with satisfaction, his skin sheened in sweat from the training he had just engaged in. He gathered all of the droids, and had their settings altered, each with a learning curve similar to the Soresu droid’s, and he gave the training droids something of a hive mind, allowing them to see through each other’s eyes and adapt their techniques accordingly. The next time Dylan fought them, they would be smarter, they would be more adaptable, and they would move against him as one. Dylan grinned with pure excitement as he prepared himself for another fight. This was going to be a long night indeed, he thought to himself. The next time he fought Gingus, he was going to destroy him!

Nice chapter dude. The Gingus and Dylan fight were especially good. The droid fight scene tho.... lol a question for another time.