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| - The day is much like any other that the Jedi School has enjoyed since it's population with students. The heat of the twin suns relentlessly poors down on the wind-worn walls, a slight breeze that does nothing to cool the skin whispers through the courtyard, stirring sand in places. A feeling of deep age sits heavily on the place, as it always has. Mindless of the heat... it seems that all those words about getting used to the weather on Tatooine were true... Aubrey Saralyn walks through the halls of the Jedi school in a thoughtful daze. A slight frown draws her eyebrows down into a V, and her lips are pursed. Her feet move with a purpose, however, taking her in a direct route toward the lightsaber workshop. Without looking around first, she walks straight toward where Priti is working. It seems the heat isn't the only thing that Aubrey has grown used to. "Can I talk to you, Priti?" she asks. The far-off look in her eye diminishes some, but some remains still, even as her brown eyes fix on the blonde student. Priti has become quite a fan of playing with the various equipment stored in the lightsaber room. Not only did it offer some refuge from the relentless heat of the twin suns, but it also let her practice manipulating the force in a quiet and peaceful environment. As Aubrey comes in, a small resistor hovers off one of the shelves filled with parts and glides through the air towards Priti, who is bent over a lightsaber casing. She peers intently at what she has already assembled inside, constantly referring to the practice saber, which lies open on the table next to her. "One sec," she says as Aubrey comes in. "I think I've almost got it." One hand reaches up to grab the resistor out of the air, where it hangs obediently, and she carefully slides it into it's place. After a few seconds, she looks up from her work, smiling triumphantly. Her lightsaber was coming along nicely. It still had a long way to go, but at least she had something to show for her work. "What's up?" she asks, turning her full attention towards Aubrey. It wouldn't have been that long ago that a piece of equipment leaving a shelf and floating in the air without support would have been something that disturbed Aubrey. Presently, Aubrey simply gives the item a glance before turning her attention to Priti's work. She herself should have started working on a saber, but the techniques that the Jedi Master taught... she could learn to stand on her head and defy gravity, but the technician in her balked when it came to what was required of constructing a lightsaber. As Priti turns her attention back to Aubrey, the brunette student gives her head a quick shake, chasing off the tangent thoughts. She says, her eyes occasionally shifting to Priti's saber, "I've been thinking about when we used to practice at night so that the boys wouldn't get ahead of us. Do you ever think about those practices?" "Sure, I think about them," Priti responds, reaching over to pick up her practice lightsaber, which lies open on her workbench. With an easy motion, like she has done it many many times, she closes the casing cover of the saber. "Every time I fight with someone I think of it." Lately, the apprentice hadn't been practicing her fighting as much as the others. She was still having issues with the heat of the desert, which the others seemed to have adapted to, and spent most of the daylight hours sleeping or working indoors. It was during the night that she had taken to lurking around the grounds, when most everyone else was asleep. She also thought of her late night fights with Aubrey when she was climbing around practicing in the middle of the night by herself. Aubrey pauses several moments before responding to Priti's words, her own thoughts drifting back to their late-night exercises. Had it really been such a short time ago? In gathering the images of them moving about with practice sabers, laughing at their mistakes and sweating in the cool night air, it seems like happened in another life. Finally, Aubrey opens her mouth and says, "I miss our practices." A thoughtful pause, and her eyes move to the weapon Priti has been working on. Not complete, yet moving along. "Practicing with Cort and Ethan makes it all seem so serious. Have you sparred with Cort much?" Priti shakes her head lightly. "Not a lot. I mostly watch you guys fight. He's good. So are you. Actually, I haven't done a lot of real sparring with a real person in a while." The student glances at her practice saber, then to Aubrey. "You wanna practice?" Most of her studies had been of the independent type, taking what Luke had said to the other students and wrestling with them at night until they worked for her. Since her breakthrough with the nails, she liked to think she had progressed pretty well. And while she would, on occasion, envy the growing closeness of the other students, Priti was enjoying her nighttime activities quite a bit. She was looking forward to an opportunity to show off what she had learned. Maybe this would be just the time. Thoughtlessly, Aubrey's right hand moves to her waist where her own practice sword is clipped as her eyes move to Priti's practice saber. She'd meant to talk with her fellow student about her last practice with Cort, but to spar with Priti... perhaps the solution to her problem would present itself in exercise. Perhaps she might even be able to find some of the laughter she'd lost since she and Priti had seemingly grown apart without her knowing it. "That could be fun," she says, a lopsided smile spreading across her lips. "We should go somewhere the boys won't see us. They'll spoil it, and then want to challenge the winner and all that sort of nonsense. I swear, sometimes it seems they think with their chest hairs." Priti giggles. "I know what you mean. Cort always looks like he wants to kill something when he's sparring. It's kind of scary." Priti slides off the stool she had been perched upon and, clipping her lightsaber to her belt, takes a few minutes to clean up the mess she had made on the workbench. She switches off the soldering iron, leaving it out to cool off, and slides the pliers she had been using into the tool drawer in front of her. As for the myriad of tiny parts spread across the table, she dumps them into a small plastic box with the name "Priti" scrawled on top and puts it in a pile of similar boxes, marked with different names, at the end of the table. "Let's go," she says, again unclipping her saber from her belt. "The place we should probably go," Aubrey says as they begin leaving the workshop, "is Cort's training center." As they walk, Aubrey's brown eyes shift over to Priti, looking to gauge whether her line of thought is picked up by her companion. Expectantly, she arches an eyebrow as if asking if Priti agreed with her thinking. "Sounds good to me," Priti responds, following Aubrey out of the workshop and making her way towards the main entrance of the school where they had built the jungle gym like contraption. As they pass through the courtyard, Priti catches the questioning look. "What?" she asks, grinning crookedly. She was rather glad for the interaction with another student, finding wandering the place at night a little lonely at times. A slight laugh escape Aubrey's lips and she says, "It's nothing. I was just-" and then her words cut off as they step out of the protection of the school and a reasonably swift wind whips over the two students, baking their faces with the desert heat. A quick intake of breath, and then Aubrey is sighing, shaking her head and blinking sand out of her eyes as she says, "Ahem. I was just wondering if you'd think of a better spot. Out of the suns. But maybe there is no better spot because of the suns. The boys are less likely to come out here this time of day." Had Aubrey actually thought she was used to this heat? The sweat forming on her brow and dampening her clothes seems to be answer enough. As they step out into the desert, Priti narrows her eyes, trying to prevent the wind from blowing sand into them. Her effort is mostly wasted, and she finds that turning her back into the wind and walking slightly backwards is much more effective. "I can think of a few places that might be cooler, but I don't think Master Luke would appreciate finding us sparring in his quarters or the meditation room." Almost immediately upon stepping out into the intense heat, the young woman feels her energy level drop. The harsh rays of the twin suns had a way of making her want to go inside and sit in the shade for a few hours. "I'll be surprised if they find us," Priti says, glancing back into the courtyard for any sign of the boys. "Well," Aubrey says, trying to sound cheerful against the heat, "we could always try and wait for later, and do this tonight after they everyone else is asleep." With eyes narrowed, she brings a hand up to shield her vision from the glare and looks toward Cort's contraption. Thankfully, it was void of people. "I have a feeling that Luke would wake up and come and investigate, though. And instead of scolding us, he'd make us do it every night, and then it'd be... you know." She didn't have to remind Priti of the nail incident. What seemed like a harmless trick turned into such a monotonous exercise that the young tech wasn't sure she'd ever be able to handle a nail without feeling some amount of chagrin. Coming from the god's know what direction, Cort makes his way through the apotheosis of all deserts. Through the sands he treks towards the school, sweating profusely but not feeling the actual effects of the heat. In his mental state, he is far beyond that now. It was two nights ago he realized why he had come here and what he must do. Strangely, denial was his first stage of realization. At first, he wanted to tell Luke or anyone what was happening. However, his ties to his true Master have already been sewn too deeply to tear. Like others before him, he knows the power of the darkness and he has little choice but to obey. Cort had been commanded by the Emperor to burn. Burn this precious school. Burn the students. Burn everything. His hazel eyes look up from the blinding sand, towards the training device he and the others had built. At first he sees nothing, but then the faint image of people become noticed over the dunes. His left hand releases the large bag he had carried, dropping it down into the sand, while he spies forth into the distance. "It would be no fun," Priti says, finishing Aubrey's sentence. "Yeah, I know." Determined to not let the sun or the heat or the blowing sand bother her or distract her from their exercise, Priti walks towards the complicated structure they had all helped Cort to build. "Let's do it," she says, grabbing a rope and half climbing, half swinging herself up to a midlevel platform. Once there, she pulls the lightsaber off the belt around her waist and turns it on, with a satisfying snap-hiss. She looks down to the ground where Aubrey still stands, grinning impishly mischievously. Cort's approach goes unnoticed for now. With considerably less enthusiasm, Aubrey begins to approach one of the ramps on the other side of the contraption. There was some amount of irony that she should take the position that Cort chose while Priti took to the platform that she'd chosen when Cort had last defeated her, as if fate had already decided who the victor would be in this match before it had begun. Victor? This wasn't like fighting Cort... this was just going to be some fun between her and Priti. The words, _Never Again!_ chase through Aubrey's mind as she steps on the ramp, her hand unclasping her practice saber from her belt. It's an echo of another memory where she'd faced Cort. With her feet spread across the ramp beneath her, Aubrey looks up toward Priti, a slight frown marring her otherwise tranquil countenance. She raises her saber to waist level and flicks the activation switch. The snap-hiss of the weapon is loud in Aubrey's ears, and for a moment, her brown eyes shift to the brightly glowing green of her blade, a torch that defies the suns in its brilliance. There was something odd about the saber... but it looked fine. As Aubrey turns her attention back up to Priti, she firms her resolve and slowly starts the mental exercise that enhances her calmness, opening her to the flow of the Force. A rosebud opens within her mind to the light of the Force, and as she becomes one with it, the blade, the platform beneath her feet, and the deadly blade within her hands, a thought flees from her mind as quickly as it forms. _I have a bad feeling about this..._ Priti gives her practice saber a few experimental swings in the air, causing it to buzz and crackle in the dryness. Her eyes track Aubrey as she walks up the ramp and onto the platform before her finally igniting her own lightsaber. Closing her eyes for a brief second, she centers herself, putting her body and mind in tune with the force. She senses it flowing first around herself, and then from Aubrey nearby. "Ready? You okay?" Priti asks, picking up on the slightest bit of hesitation coming from her opponent. Like Priti, Aubrey hefts her saber a moment, then fixes her partner in this practice with a firm grin. There is calmness in her now... thoughts and emotions are secondary to her being as she lets go as Luke had trained her, but with the practice, she's able to acknowledge the thoughts and feelings and react to them now. Even still, her voice is distant in her ears and almost cold as she answers, "I'm ready. This should be fun!" She quickly begins to move further up the ramp and toward guide-line, preparing to get into a position to engage Priti. It wasn't going to be the dance-like motions they'd experienced before Luke's arrival, but it could still be fun. At the go ahead from Aubrey, Priti circles around to the ramp that Aubrey is ascending, her lightsaber gripped firmly in both hands. As she moves, the desert is rather quiet, save for the whisper of the wind over the dunes and the crackling of the saber as it encounters any sand caught up by the breeze. Priti's eyes are still narrowed to protect them from the brightness of the suns and she relies on the force to help compensate for the loss in vision. Beads of sweat roll down her face as she steps off her platform onto the ramp Aubrey currently climbs. She waits there patiently, gripping her saber in both hands, for her opponent to enter striking distance. Aubrey hesitates with Priti's movement, the script rewritten before it had even begun. When she'd been in Priti's position against Cort, she'd waited for her sparring partner, moving their fight to the high wire above and to their right. Had it been a mistake? Was Priti taking the right strategy, where Aubrey had failed before? The self-doubt rolls across the void of calmness within her mind, and immersing herself further into the Force, she moves forward to take the first strike. Her green blade swings forward to mid-level as she presses up and into a quick lunge. A forced smile spreads across her lips as she moves. They had come out here to have fun. It was a spar, not a fight. Just for fun. It had to be. Bram awakes in the shade of a few low boulders near the apparatus and blinks up at the silhouettes of the dueling students. He had grown accustomed to lightsaber fights in the past few weeks, and the flashes and noises they made no longer sent him running for cover. Sniffing the air, his snout wrinkles slightly and he licks his jowls while coming to half-rise on his front paws to watch them with keen interest. Silly students. Wasting energy in this gods forsaken heat.. he'll sit right here in the shade thank you.. perhaps Priti brought him some bread. The black tongue goes to lick eagerly at his chops once again, a small whine emitting from his throat. Because the girls were fighting less to be competitive and more to practice and have fun, Priti makes no attempt to put up any guards in her mind. She lets her movements flow with the force, bending and moving it gently, not using it so much as shaping it. With the lunge from Aubrey, she dodges to one side, using her own saber to deflect Aubrey's jab to one side. Taking a few steps down the ramp, on the offensive now, Priti quickly lifts her blade and, swinging it around, brings it down in a strike aimed at Aubrey's shoulder. Blue blaze beats back emerald, deftly and assuredly as Aubrey had expected. As such, she had not put her full weight into the attack, leaving herself enough maneuverability to spring out of the way of Priti's counter attack. Aubrey is not a warrior. The words had left her mouth, and her actions time and time again had proven the fact rather soundly. When she'd beaten Cort... but that was not what this was about. This was supposed to be fun. This was just sparring, not an actual conflict. With a quick duck, the brunette student launches herself out of the way of Priti, throwing her left hand up to grasp the high line above and to her right. Rather than swinging to another position as she'd done against Cort, she retains her grip on the line, twisting her shoulder around to hang facing Priti with her saber between them. Priti scrambles back as Aubrey grabs at the rope, just in case she should come swinging towards her. But as her opponent seems to just dangle there, can't help but smile and, instead of attacking her, just kind of reaches out with playful swats at her saber, hoping to send the rope twisting in circles. After each swat, she again would hop out of slashing range, avoiding any swinging her jabs may inspire Aubrey to make. She was mostly amused at the idea of making the rope twist Aubrey around. And who knew. Maybe when her back was turned, Priti would get a chance to tag Aubrey's back. Two points. Not only was she not a warrior, but her grasp on tactics in combat was questionable at best. In doesn't take long for Aubrey to realize that the position she'd put herself in, while categorically unpredictable, was also tremendously disarming from a defensive point of view. If her blonde counterpart did more than playful jabs, Aubrey wouldn't be able to maneuver to defend. And if she should twist around and put her back to Priti... she couldn't dangle like that. Concentrating her focus to a single task, Aubrey closes her eyes, her green blade moving as if on its own to deflect Priti's attacks while the memory of another practice is brought forth. In defiance of gravity, she'd held herself aloft on two fingers... the first of her successes. Now, she had four to work with. It wasn't anything she'd ever done before, but instincts take over and with a shout, she moves. Pulling with a strength that is not her own, guiding herself with Force, Aubrey launches herself straight up. One moment, she's hanging by her hand, deflecting Priti's blade, the next she is standing on the line she'd been hanging from, her saber held in both hands. Waiting for Priti to join her. Priti had been greatly enjoying her jabbing fun, and when she suddenly finds herself poking at midair, she finds that she is a little disappointed. For a moment, her lightsaber drops limply at her side and she opens her mouth to protest in a childish "No fair" manner. But before she does, she thinks the better of it, refocuses herself, and, without looking up, locates Aubrey on the high wire above. She struggles to regain the same concentration she managed to achieve during her late night practice sessions alone, when the only sounds or distractions were the far off cries of the creatures in the desert who came out into the cool night air to find food. Blocking out the heat, and the pressure of Aubrey above staring down at her, Priti focuses the force, using it to launch herself in a jump towards the wire high above. She flies through the air, landing with a light grunt. For a moment, the wire bobs up and down, under the sudden added weight, and Priti checks her balance, preparing herself for an attack from the other woman. Had Aubrey not had her eyes on Priti, watching as she leapt, she wouldn't have been prepared for the sudden wild swinging of the rope under her feet. As it is, she's forced to fling her left hand wide, holding her balance with all her concentration for several heartbeats as she moves in accordance with the sway of the high wire. And then, she moves back into attack. Her weight shifts to her left foot as she swings her right in front of her, placing her more squarely in striking distance of the blonde Jedi student. In harmony with her movement, guided by the Force, her green blade follows suit, moving to strike with a renewed, deadly speed. The wire wobbles under Priti's feet as Aubrey moves to strike, and, without even thinking, her arms guide her lightsaber to parry the blow. The strike, stronger than she had expected, nearly sends her falling off the rope, but, relying on the force to steady her, she redirects the motion into moving her left foot behind her right, opening the distance between her and Aubrey. Fighting with an opponent was rather different than the mock fights she had had during her independent work at night, in which she ran around the structure attacking shadows or imaginary opponents. This way was definitely more fun. Finding her balance again, Priti lunges forward on the rope, making a jab for Aubrey's stomach. With the motion of the rope beneath her, Aubrey's legs swing forward and back fluidly as part of concentration goes toward maintaining her balance. The rest of her concentration is flung toward continuing the press of her attack. Taking to the high line was a good idea it would seem. Even if she'd only fought Cort briefly on similar ground, it was more than Priti had done, and made for her to be one step ahead of her opponent. That Priti didn't fall as she had when Cort had pressed his attack was somewhat irritating. In every respect, Priti seemed to be doing far better than she'd done against Cort, countering the difficulties of the training course where Aubrey had failed previously. Swinging her left foot forward as she had her right before, she casually twists her blade down and to the left, sending Priti's blue blade wide and giving her room to swing another attack, this one a slash from Priti's lower left to upper right. Priti is pressed back by Aubrey's attack, feeling that if she doesn't concentrate on her defense that she's going to end up sprawled on the platform below. She struggles to block the swipe from the emerald saber, barely managing to intercept it before it tagged her in the chest. What she doesn't notice, as she is too intent on staying upright, is that Aubrey's blade brushes the cloth of her loose pants on the upswing, leaving a small, singed hole in the fabric instead of just brushing it aside like any normal practice saber would have done. The jedi apprentice takes a few steps backwards, hoping to get to the platform holding the rope up, but not wanting to look behind her to see how far back it was lest she open herself to attack. She'd seen Cort do it, and she was certain that Ethan had done it. Considering how she'd brought herself up onto this tightrope, she must be able to do it herself. Letting Priti take another step away toward the platform, Aubrey draws her concentration to a fine point once more and closes her eyes. Her knees buckle beneath her, deepening her bodily toward the line swinging beneath her. Then, just at the point the line is directly beneath her, she launches upward again. Holding to the Force, her mind fixes the position of the platform even as her body moves through the air. Up and over Priti she goes, flipping over and half twisting so as to land on the other side of her opponent and still face her. Her emerald blade moves with the motion, swinging in a defensive arc between she and Priti in flight, the hum and buzz of it filling the area with its rapid movement. And then Aubrey's feet hit the surface she'd been aiming for. The platform itself, while more solid than the rope, still gives a little... more than the brunette had anticipated. For a moment, her arms fly to each side to maintain her balance and keep her from falling backwards, off the training platform. Well, Aubrey had done it again. One moment she was there, and the next she was gone. "What the-," Priti murmurs, watching Aubrey go somersaulting over her head and wind up behind her. The trajectory of the jump, however, told Priti just how far back the platform was, which was not very far at all. Moving before Aubrey can collect her whereabouts and her balance, Priti neatly pivots on the wire and is waiting for her when she lands. With a quick and easy swipe, the girl tags the other girl neatly on the shoulder. "Gotcha," she says, wriggling her eyebrows for a brief moment before purposefully dropping off the wire to the platform below, daring Aubrey to come after her. A startled scream escapes Aubrey's lips as the practice blade cleanly connects with her left shoulder. Had it been her right, she surely would have dropped her blade and the game would have been over. As it is, the sting of the sizzling practice weapon strikes a nerve, and her whole arm goes numb, her fingers splaying open suddenly and uncontrollably. It was usually the worst part about sparring. For Aubrey, now... the physical sting was nothing by comparison to her mental cry. When they'd started this, she knew that she would win. She had wanted it to be fun... she'd wanted to laugh as they'd laughed before. But deep down, she wanted to win. She wanted to be the best, just as Cort wanted to be the best. _Never Again!_ had been what she vowed after besting Cort that one time. Never again would she be defeated. Brown eyes move to meet blue down below. Playful as they may be, there is a challenge there. She had been stung, but the game was still on. She still had her blade. More than that, the image of the rose in her mind was beginning to twist as it had when she'd fought cort. Blood-black petals defy the darkness of the void within her mind, razor sharp thorns twisting out from a twisted stem of wicked design. Cort had said that she needed a stronger image, and this had blossomed. Luke had taught you should do something or do not do it... to try was futile. He'd used different words, but the meaning was clear. A coldness consumes Aubrey as shackles of emotion latch onto the Force, drawing it to her will and shaping it by her design. Coldness... in such defiance of the sun it would seem that the beads of sweat on Aubrey's brow and between her shoulder blades should freeze to ice. Gritting her teeth, Aubrey goes into action, launching herself off the platform and bringing her blade to bear. Do, or do not. That had been the words Luke had used. With every muscle taught, Aubrey does. Priti's minor victory has the exact opposite effect on her than it had upon her sparring partner. Whereas Aubrey finds new power in a dark, cold place, Priti feels a renewed surge of energy and power in the light side of the force. Perhaps it is the interaction between the two fledgling jedi, and the small boost of confidence she gets when she tags her. The boost that lets her know that she had been doing something right after all, and it hadn't been wasting her time in her midnight practice sessions. Suddenly, the force which she had grappled so hard to tame was with her. It is comfortable, as if it has always been with her, and warm, but not in such a way as to amplify the already nearly unbearable heat of the desert. Instead it almost makes it easier to bear, or at least ignore. Everything that Master Luke had said about the force, and its power, finally clicked into place, as did the keys to its mastery: Peace, Calm, Control. So overtaken is she by these revelations that she barely notices the changes in the other woman. Finding Aubrey hurling through the air at her, Priti does her best to throw herself out of the way, letting the force give her an extra push, and lands a few feet away on a ramp leading down to a lower platform. She scrambles to her feet, her blue light saber held defensively in front of her. With a loud thump, Aubrey's feet find the platform that Priti had first escaped to, her blazing green chop hitting nothing but air. Before, Aubrey had been one with the training device, the air around her, and her opponent, all through the Force. Now, she is one only with her blade. As a predator with one long, fierce claw, Aubrey shoves off from the platform in pursuit of her prey. Where before calmness had existed beneath concentration, anger resides, giving Aubrey strength beyond her mortal frame. Fear of losing again tempers her concentration, honing it to a razor edge. Hatred for her weakness drives all doubt away, lending unnatural speed and confidence to her attacks. Each swing of her blade is more wild than the last, yet each demands attention. _Never again!_ is the battle cry in Aubrey's mind. "Gee, Aubrey's attacks seem to be a little more vicious," Priti thinks to herself. Thank you, Captain Obvious. Reaching out to gently nudge Aubrey with the force, in the same playful manner that she had been poking at her on the rope earlier with her lightsaber, trying to remind her that it was just a game. Surprisingly, she finds her opponent rather closed off and unreceptive to anything Priti might send her way, as if Aubrey had suddenly built walls all around herself. She could still sense her there, but it was somehow different. However, Priti, having no experience with the dark side of the force, doesn't recognize it for what it is, and thinks that her friend is simply being difficult. Skillfully blocking each swing of the lightsaber that Aubrey throws her way, Priti slowly begins to regain some ground inching up the ramp towards Aubrey. Something lingers momentarily on the edge of Aubrey's senses, but she ignores it. The fight is all, the emerald blade in her hand is all. She MUST win this time. No... she will win this time. 'Must' implies that she is trying, that there is doubt in the conclusion. There is no doubt. As Priti steps forward, Aubrey does not fall back. No ground will she give this time. Pursing her lips, grinding her teeth, Aubrey swings her blade low, a quick cutting motion at knee-level. Priti hops back a step to avoid the chop to her knees, tossing Aubrey a startled look. "Grief," she utters, deciding that if she doesn't want to get a nasty shock from that saber that she would probably do best to back up a little. That last swipe was a little close. She backs down the ramp a few steps, walking backwards into an area with a rather low ceiling where she has to duck slightly. What Cort was thinking when designing this area she had no idea. Fighting was no fun when you were half bent over. Even with her ferocity adding strength to her attacks, Aubrey's blade was not finding its mark. Had Cort let her win? Had he taken pity on Aubrey and allowed her a victory where she would never have found one on her own? The thoughts are like fuel on the fire, and the coldness within Aubrey seers her to the bone. Her lips peel back in a rictus of a snarl, and she lunges forward. There is no grace in her steps. There are no dance-like motions. There is nothing fun about this attack, and there is no trace of laughter to be found in Aubrey's fury. What Priti and she had shared never existed as far as Aubrey is concerned at that moment. Thoughtlessly, Aubrey's swings begin to go wide, the emerald blade tearing through some of the construction effortlessly, slicing cleanly and sending sparks into the air. And then Aubrey's voice is found. "Never again!!" she screams as she presses her attack to its hardest. Aubrey's attacks are doing their job, pushing Priti farther and farther back into the complex until she finds herself up against a wall, unable to back away from Aubrey's attacks any longer. As her friend closes in on her, still striking away, Priti suddenly feels that this isn't fun anymore. Not because she was losing. She could handle losing. But more because she couldn't feel Aubrey anymore. She had almost entirely shut herself off from the interaction they had been sharing through the force. Priti continues to parry the swinging attacks, barely able to keep up as Aubrey continues the seemingly endless barrage. "Okay, okay, you win, you win," she says, trying to force a smile onto her face, although she no longer senses the feeling of friendliness from the other woman. In fact, what little she could pick up was cold, almost icy. "I surrender," she adds to her words, suddenly flipping off her lightsaber. If Aubrey wanted to tag her that badly, she could do it. This, as it turns out, is not a good idea. They reach the point where Priti can back no further away, and Aubrey can taste her victory. It's cold, but it's solid and true. It's something she can hold onto within the void and and chaotic storm that's within her mind. Priti's words reach Aubrey's ears as she bears down on her, but the meaning is lost to her until the blue glow of Priti's weapon is extinguished. Surrender? No... she's giving up so that Aubrey won't be defeated in the end. She knows that Aubrey is no warrior, and could never beat any of the students hand to hand. She would always be less of a Jedi by comparison. Her right hand squeezes the cylinder of her lightsaber, her knuckles going white and her arm shaking with the intensity. The coldness within Aubrey freezes her blood, and thought disappears. Throwing her head back, closing her eyes in frustration, Aubrey howls in rage and frustration as she swings her blade one last time at her opponent. The emerald blade moves, and with every inch before it finds it's mark, her opponent's shape begins to change within her mind. She's not her opponent, she's Priti. She's not just another Jedi student, she's her friend. She was the one to pull her out of the desert. She was the one to give her water when she was thirsty. She was the one that had laughed with her and comforted her as she started her new life. Aubrey's howl changes from rage to sorrow, and she's unable to stop the inevitable. When Priti extinguishes her blade, she fully expects Aubrey's to soon follow, at which point they would both have a good laugh and head back into the school for some water. She was rather thirsty after all that exertion, she realizes. But, to her great chagrin, Aubrey's lightsaber is, moments later, not only still ignited, but still swinging. In the few seconds it takes for the blade to swing towards her, a number of thoughts run through the doomed student's head. Strange how her broad, uncontrolled sweeps seem to be doing rather extensive damage to the supports that they hit. She must be swinging that thing pretty hard. Priti, therefore, prepares for quite a blow when the saber impacts her side. "Aubr-," she manages to squeak out, hoping that her friend will pull back just before the weapon collides with her. But before she can finish getting the word out, the green blade hits her side, cutting deeply into the flesh before the swing stops. "Ow," she says, the word already on her lips, expecting the zap from the practice saber. Frowning, she looks at Aubrey, then to her side, where she realizes what has happened. "What--how?" she stammers, falling to her knees, and then to her back. Blood spills out of her side, off the platform and onto the desert sand, where it is sucked almost immediately into the dry ground, leaving nothing but a crimson stain where it struck. "What have I done?" The words are uttered in a hoarse whisper. Her weapon slips numbly from her hand, the sound if it clattering on the support and rolling off onto the ground below punctuating her words. There is no image of a rose in her mind, charred black or otherwise, but the coldness inside remains. Fear, anger, hatred... she had become more intimate with those feelings than she could have been with a lover. The Dark Side had pierced her to her soul, the cut more clean than that which she'd given her friend. Blood fills her vision before it becomes blurred with tears. She had been savagely strong just moments ago, but as she looks down at Priti's wounded form, all her strength is sapped from her and she collapses next to her friend weakly. "Priti... oh Priti..." At the end of the fight, it's not hatred that has overtaken Aubrey, but a bitter bitter sorrow. "It's okay, Aubrey. It's okay," Priti says, amazingly clearly for someone who has just had a rather large hole carved into their side. Everything is, of course, anything but okay. To Aubrey at least. Priti herself seems really rather calm about the whole situation. The fact that her blood was rapidly getting sucked up by the desert didn't seem to bother her all that much. The wounded girl rolls her head to look at her friend, the first friend she had really made after leaving her home planet. Her eyes focus for a minute on Aubrey's sorrowful face before they seem to shift focus, looking at something very far away. Past the low ceiling of the structure, past the twin suns overhead. "I can feel it, Aubrey. The force. It's so strong. How did we ever not feel it? It's all over. I can practically see it," she murmurs softly, her life drifting slowly away with each drop of blood spilled to the desert below. Fighting desperately to hang on, or somehow comfort her sorrowful friend, she says, "It's beautiful. It's okay. Don't worry.." And with that, she is gone. Or the part of her that made her Priti is. It almost seamlessly blends into the force, lingering in the air for just a few moments before dissipating like a puff of smoke. The world went upside down, the universe twisted itself inside out. Aubrey the healer ravagely attacked and murdered her friend in cold blood. Priti's dying words went out to console the one that struck her down. A beautiful blonde girl, born on in a world of ice and snow drew her last breath beneath the twin suns of a desert planet. Madness and chaos. Aubrey continued to sit next to Priti's body. There was nothing she could do. Her butchering had done its work soundly. Racking sobs leave her, and tears stream down her cheek as if meant to turn the desert to an ocean by herself. In the last moments of Priti's life, she had felt her friend's life move on to join the Force, a parting caress to her scarred and tattered soul. Time stretches out for the remaining student. It could have been an hour or only a few heartbeats that she sat there, numbly weeping at the loss of her friend and the loss of the something else, something intangible yet dear. The tears do eventually find an end, and Aubrey reaches for something to fill the void. What she finds is anger, sitting ready to take her in its strong arms and set her course once more. Coldly, Aubrey rises to her feet, her eyes still fixed on Priti's face. There was peace in her countenance, like the peace she'd known before... before Cort had given her something else to latch onto. Cort... Aubrey pulls her eyes away from Priti's form and looks down to the sand where her lightsaber was caught by the sand below. Her lightsaber had been harmless before this morning. Cort must have altered it, made it deadly. Cort. It had been Aubrey's arm, Aubrey's will, but it was Cort that had planted the seed. It was Cort that had given her the weapon, somehow. Like a snowball moving downhill, Aubrey's rage begins to build. She steps off the training apparatus and lands near Priti's blood and her lightsaber. As she picks it up, the metal of the weapon is warm from use. She hardly feels it as her mind fills coldly and solidly with Cort. Her hand tightens on the warm shaft of her lightsaber, and without thinking... there is no more thoughts now... she ignites it, the emerald hum singing in harmony with her growing hatred. The twisted, dead rose forms in her mind unbidden... and with tremendous force, Aubrey throws her head back and screams at the top of her lungs Cort's name.
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