Chapter 50

My lessons have become a mixture of exasperation and enjoyment for the youngling. They really like pistols to the great annoyance of the Jedi but they can suck my feet. The younglings are visible learners and when I asked them to disarm a dummie and save a fake hostage they used a lightsaber to cut the dummie apart at the cost of the hostage. I showed them a better easier and more cost-effective way. With practice ease and the fluid motion of a gunslinger, I whipped out my blaster, aimed and fired hitting all the dummy's hands in a flash. No hostages dead, no dummies terrorists dead and all at the cost of a couple of blaster shots. The right tool for the right job.

On the other hand, the younglings did not like the little day trip to the lower levels of Coruscant. It was meant to show that the Jedi aren't universally loved, that even on the same planet as their temple base the people are so removed from the Jedi that they have no interactions with them and that their wealth makes the poor hate them, but the younglings didn't get far in the lessons because they started to feel the desperation and anger of the common people that their soft little minds closed off. That got me talked down to by Yoda, which I didn't care about because I am older than him, which is something I like to rub in his face.

The lightsaber's first form is coming around nicely, I've decided to put my Doppelgangers to work but only on the form, I'm still waving around my orange lightsaber to get used to it. With each swing, I feel the fear being imprisoned by familiarity and confidence.

Yoda has tried to hit me several times when my form is slightly off but the stick he uses is zapped by my force electric shield. I swear Yoda is probing my defence for weakness. I allow a few hits on my legs and shin to give false information to Yoda, you never know who will become your enemy.

Yoda has no patience with me, he attacks me with all the forms he learned despite me only knowing the first form. I've seen him attacking slowly with zero faints with the younglings but he doesn't hold back with me.

I'm getting the impression that Yoda is enjoying attacking me. I'm getting the feeling that Yoda is a bit of an asshole, but there's no one whos a bigger asshole than me. I can't compete with lightsabers but I'm a true master of fighting dirty. At first, I change his space awareness by a couple of inches. Yoda adapts quickly but not before I piggyback off Yoda's emotion of being surprised. Simple changes in a person's mind work the best and I find the easiest thing to change in their perception is colour.

Yoda has a great mind rich with Jedi training but I'm no beginner when it comes to the mind, it's not like I'm trying to change Yoda's instincts and personality, I just add a little colour.

Yoda pauses as his perception of colour changes like a Psychedelic drug fiend. I sense Yoda is using the force to protect his mind but he hasn't realised yet that this isn't just a mind attack but I'm messing with his chemicals. This little technique is very useful against non-force users but against Siths it would be useless, they fight with anger and emotions that can cause spikes in chemical changes and thus make it much harder to do these things but Jedi are all about control which gives me a stable platform of emotions to mess with. It is a win-win for me because if you are stoic and controlled then messing with your chemicals is easier but if you are powered by emotions then I can piggyback ride on those and mess with other things.

I do some basic strikes and push Yoda back, he flips through the air and avoids them. Even while in mid-air I can feel that Yoda is wrestling back his perception at the same time Yoda is closing off my connection with his emotions. Smart and skilful but he's doing this on instinct and it will take time. I swiftly apply my dirty trick, before his perception is closed off from me I change his colour scheme to orange.

The floor is orange, the ceiling is orange, and even the furniture is different shades of orange. This doesn't affect Yoda as much as the mind-warping Psychedelic colours but what it does do is make my lightsaber effectively invisible.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

However, I'm not the only one using the force, Yoda is listening to their secret whispers. It's an odd and frustrating feeling when each of your strikes is parred, blocked and redirected by an opponent who can't even see the weapon. Yoda is better at me when it comes to listening to the force, he has complete faith that the force will tell no lies and protect him from my future strikes. Yoda doesn't need to see he just trusts the force. To fight Yoda is to fight a long-lasting battle where an all-powerful force is telling him where to attack next.

Yoda slowly and skillfully pushed me back, not because I was a challenge but because he was just that much better and he was making sure not to hurt me. I tucked in and worked on defence while I sneakily attacked with telekinesis. Chairs and tables moved towards Yoda but would stop at random. I hoped that the random movement and threats of moving furniture would break Yoda's timing.

Yoda's movement became stunted, this was practice and Yoda could have sliced the furniture in half but this was his stuff, there wasn't any way to learn from the destruction of his stuff.

Yoda's floating chair positioned itself between us causing his attacks to be diverted. Yoda jumped onto the chair and swung his blade to miss me because I raised the chair. Yoda stumbled when I let go of the chair and he had to take control of the falling chair to keep the high ground.

I blocked an attack and kicked the chair to give me more space. The chair only moved a few inches due to Yoda's control over the item but it was just a distraction so I could pull the water out of a cup that Yoda was drinking from before the training. The liquid crept across the floor and spread wide.

I yanked control from Yoda and started to shake the chair around like a rattle, he flipped through the air ready to land but I wasn't done, i pulled a three-pronged chair from its corner and put it in the way of Yoda. Again he flipped off the stoll legs and landed.

Yoda paused and looked at the floor and where I was pointing, he didn't understand until he felt a numbing feeling all over his body.

I understood how the force whispered secrets but I also understood how vague it could be. The force would tell the user if they were in trouble but not what kind of trouble. The shaking footrest of the floating chair, the awkwardly placed three-pronged stoll, and my indirect pointing at the wet floor were all slight troubles that the force warned Yoda of but he didn't understand why. It was a combo of small attacks that led to a trap.

I gave Yoda the answer, the air between my finger and the floor warps and reveals a thin lighting stream that connects with the water and travels up to Yoda. The force warned Yoda but each tiny thing I did was so small that even the force didn't warn Yoda just how much trouble he was in, it helped that both of us weren't attacking with intent to harm.

"Fight well, you do," said Yoda "Tricks serve you well"

"I've built my skills over a long time, fought The Brotherhood of Darkness, defeated people who were stronger than me and through all my time I know I could be killed by a lucky shot. Tricks are my bread and butter, they've kept me alive" I reply

"Your Shii-Cho good it is, think Soresu will be good for your fighting style," says Yoda

Soresu is the third form of lightsaber combat and is a defensive style that uses tight controlled movement to conserve energy. Yoda has picked the best style for me to use with all my tricks. The more time I'm able to deflect, parry and dodge, the more time I'm able to use my force abilities and tricks to survive. It would be a battle of attrition and with my tools, the more time that passed, the greater chance of winning.

Unfortunately, training Soresu is going to hurt. I'm going to have to redirect blaster bolts and deflect Yoda strikes without my force lightning shield. Using my force skills won't help in the development of my third form. I would have to go deeper into the force and listen to the whispers. Soresu is the art of listening to the force and trusting it.

I'm not weak when it comes to listening to the force but I can't tell you how many times two powerful force users fought trusting in the force and one of them dying in shock that they misinterpreted what it said. I've been fighting with the knowledge that I'm not the best and the force might one day be on the side of another. Some would call that paranoid but it has to happen or there wouldn't be a winner and loser in the force. My thoughts are, to trust the force but have a blaster as a backup.

After my training, I had a day to roam the temple. The library would be a great start as its archives were vast and well-documented. When the Jedi are purged the information will be lost, I should make a copy but not today.

I have questions that no living Jedi can answer but I must find out, for my future. Why, despite the Jedi's overwhelming numbers did they not see the dark side in the form of Palpatine on their very doorstep? The force should have told them. The Jedi order has powerful clairvoyant users who should have seen it coming but despite the resources they failed horribly. If a giant like the Jedi can be fooled then so can I, even if I know what's coming.