"D’lar!! D’lar Razdan Rivin Get you little butt down here!!" Rivin’s mother yells up towards his room.
Shortly there after Rivin runs down the stairs and into the kitchen where his mother stands waiting for him. The 7 year old stops at his mother’s feet and drops to his knees.
"What is wrong oh gracious mother?"
"Do you call this floor clean!!" She says waving her hand towards the floor. "Look at it!! You were suppose to clean it!! There is muddy foot prints ALL over the floor!!"
D’lar replies in tone almost as if he was begging to not have to scrub it again "I did clean the floor!!! That must have been put on the floor when Sis came home!!"
"I don’t care HOW it got there! It’s THERE!! NOW CLEAN!! " His mother says walking towards some dishes hanging from the wall.
"But mother!! I have school work!! I don’t have time to do both!!"
Rivin's Mother picks up a frying pan from the counter and slams it against Rivin’s head. As she says "GET TO WORK!!" allowing Rivin to fall on his face, his head reverberating from the hit. He struggles back to his knees with he sound of the blow still echoing through his head.
"Yes mother... Right away mother..."
Rivin's Mom storms out of the room, dropping the pan on Rivin’s back. She calls back to him.."I want it spotless!!"
Rivin struggles back to his feet, rubbing his back and head, flipping his middle finger at the door his mother just left through. Rivin Sighs "now where did I put that bucket...."
It did not take Rivin long to find his bucket, and scrub brush and goes about scrubbing the whole floor again. And four hours later, Just as he is almost finished his work, his sister comes into the room.
"Ohh brother!! You missed a spot!!" She says in a bratty tone of voice
Rivin look up at his Sister not wanting the beating that he would he if he did miss a spot so he asked "Where?"
"Right over here!! Come over and I’ll show you!" She says with her impish grin getting bigger
Rivin crawls over to his sister, not noticing the impish grin that still holds her face and asks again when he doesn’t see it "Where!"
Rivin's Sister then empties a bag of hot Horse Dung on to the floor and uses her foot to shove Rivin’s face into the pile. The 12 year old girl then drags her brother across the floor spreading the Dung with it.
"Right there!" The evil child laughs "Have fun Bro!!"
His Sister walks out of the room still laughing, as Rivin gets up off the floor and heads to the bathroom to wash the dung off his body. After he has finished washing himself he hears his mothers voice...
"D’lar Razdan Rivin Get you little butt down here!! NOW!!"
Rivin runs back down to his mother
"What The Heck Have You Been DOING IN HERE!! The floor is worse off than before!!!"
"I cleaned it but then Sis..."
"Now don’t you go blaming sister for this!! She is a sweet young girl!! And I won’t have you doing that "Sis did it" routine!! Even though I try SO hard to raise you well, I just cant get the evil that your Bastard Runaway Father put into you!!" She says reaching for the Frying pan again
Rivin gets fed up with his mother, fed up with the years of abuse, fed up with the yelling. All this together, plus the anger he has for his sister, makes him snap, and he throws the scrub brush into His mother's face, unknowingly using the Force to accelerate it to speeds fast enough to cause the brush to knock his mother unconscious. Rivin gets a shocked look on his face....
Oh no!! what should I do!! I hurt mother!! Rivin thought to himself RUN!!
And that is what he did. He ran out of the house before his mother could wake up. He ran, hard and fast until his legs couldn’t hold him anymore. When this happened he fell on the grass and just lied there to tired to move, and after ten minutes, the exhausted boy heard a dark voice from above him...
"I’ve been watching you, and I can help you get rid of all of your troubles..."
Rivin rolled over to see who is talking and asked him "Who are you?! What do you want?!"
"I am your father, J’tal Silvax, and I want to help you. I can teach you how to deal with any problems that come against you, make it so YOU can be the one who forces the females to do things you want them to do. When I am done with you, your mother will be bowing down at YOUR feet in the great and awesome power you will possess.
Rivin got a questioning look on his face, as he looked up at his father in disbelief
"How would you do that? Mother doesn’t back down to anybody."
"The Force is the power that you have that will get all in this town, planet, maybe even the galaxy to fear you. Your Anger, Fear, Pain, and Hatred will make you into a creature to be feared and obeyed. Come home with me and I will teach you."
This sounded too good to be true, but he didn’t have many other options, so Rivin got up off the ground.
"Ok , I like the sounds of this. I’ll just go home and tell mother that I’ll be with you."
"NO!" His father said loudly, quickly collecting himself before he continued . "Do you really want to face her after what you did. wouldn’t you rather be able to fight her when you see her next?"
Rivin thinks for a moment before replying "Ok lead the way. I’ll deal with mother later."
"GOOD! Follow me, and don’t tell ANYBODY about the place I am taking you."
J’tal walked off into the woods with Rivin following close behind him. After 8 hours of walking they reach a cave in the side of a mountain at the bottom of a cliff climbing the rest of the way to the summit. They walked into the cave, J'tal used the force to move a large boulder in the back of the cave to one side, and the two of them walked past the boulder, then J’tal moved the boulder back into place..
"This is my home. It will be your home until you are ready to leave. Come with me."
Rivin walked behind his father, around the corner, where he saw a large open room with the walls covered with weapons from the floor to the balcony 20 feet up. On the balcony the walls were lined with books and tomes all the way to the ceiling 40 feet up. On the bottom floor there were arched doorways in the middle of each wall. One heading to a staircase that lead to the balcony, one heading to the basement door, one heading to the bedrooms, and the one that they just came through.
"This is the training room, the balcony is the library, the stairs over there lead to the basement...DO NOT GO DOWN THERE!! That is where I stay. The rooms through the other doorway lead to the rooms where my students stay. Let me show you your room."
The two of them walked through the last doorway mentioned and to the last room in the hallway beyond the arches. J’tal Opens the door and waved Rivin into the room saying "This is your room."
Rivin walked into the room and looked around the small area that has been given to him. There was a bed in the far corner of the room, and a dresser in the other far corner. On the dresser was an alarm clock. Other than that, the room was empty.
"There are 3 other students in this place that are in the other rooms on this side of the hall. The other side of the hall is the training supplies. Supper will be in 2 hours, and breakfast is at the time your alarm will go off at. We eat in the training room. I will bring your food up from the basement. Until then. Make yourself comfortable."
J’tal walked out of the room leaving Rivin alone as he examines the contents of his room. Seeing nothing of interest, he went and walked around the complex. Shortly he finds himself on the balcony. He looks at some of the book, most of which are about fighting and tactics.
He picked up a book titled Lightsaber Combat: The Basics, and he start to read it, and He read the book until it was supper time, when he sees the other three students enter the training room and sit on the floor. That's when he went down as well, and sat down with the other 3 students. They all watch as J'tal brings up a big pot from the basement. The 4 students picked up a plate and walked to the pot of food where their plates are filled with a thick chunky slop.
Rivin wrinkles his nose at the slop but sits to eat it anyway. After supper Rivin watches his father take the pot back downstairs, after J'tal gives them instructions to go to the balcony and read for 3 hours. Rivin waits till his father is out of site before he goes back up to the balcony and continues to read the Lightsaber combat book that he had before. His father showed up on the balcony shortly after he started to read, where Rivin looked up at his father and asked...
"Father.... Why must we read for 3 hours? Shouldn’t we be training or something."
J’tal looked down at Rivin and replied..."This is part of your training. We read because information can be more devastating that any weapon. A well place rumour can cause more destruction than any bomb, without the risk of being caught and punished. Also Without information such as that in these books, You will not last long in the harsh world outside. The hands on training will happen in the morning." He then pauses for a moment and turns back to his son "Oh, And I recommend that you call me Master from now on..."
Rivin nods and continues to read the book before him, not wanting to find out what will happen if he did call J'tal Father again. He used the three hours to put the stances, postures, blocks, and attacks, from the book into his memory, and forced himself to remember them, and it was not long till the three hours had passed, and they were told that they could go to bed now. So Rivin put the book back on the shelf and went back to his room, and fell to sleep quickly.
5 hours later the alarm goes off, and Rivin crawls out of bed and into the training room, where he was promptly fed more chunky slop. He asks one of the other students...
"Do we ever get anything other than this slop?"
"Nope.. This is all we get..."
"Oh... that must make meals boring"
"You get use to the stuff..." The young man says as he looks Rivin over "So you’re the son of the Master? You don’t look like you could harm a fly!"
"Yes my father it the Master." Rivin replies, Ignoring the last comment about his combat readiness
As the students finish their food J’tal speak up.
"Everybody. 30 laps around the training room!!"
All the students break out into a sprint around the training room, with Rivin pulling up the rear of the of the pack. J’tal takes the food back down to the basement while the students are doing there laps, bringing back up a number of sharp objects and metal handles. The rest of the student finish there 30 laps a long time before Rivin does. and By the end of his run his entire body is sore and cramped. He was glad it was over until J’tal spoke up, Holding out a blind fold...
"Since you were the last one to finish Rivin, you will be the first in our next exercise. Step forward and put on this blind fold."
Rivin takes the blind fold and puts it on not knowing what to expect, but he does seem to know that it will likely cause him more pain.
"Now I want you to do your best to not get hurt."J’tal goes to continue "I will give you 5 minutes so you can tap into your aggressive emotions and use them to let the force flow through your body. You will be alright if you let the force be your eyes."
Rivin tries to follow J’tal’s brief instructions, but he just doesn’t quite understand what he is trying to do. That is he does not understand until out of the blackness a small hard object hit him hard in the shoulder. The pain travels through his body as he hits the floor with his face and recoils in pain. He gets hit again in the leg, then his back, then his right arm.
His anger growing with each hit. Finally he stops fighting his anger and lets it loose. That is when he understands. He can now see a large rock flying at his head, almost as if he was watching from another person’s point of view. He rolls off to the side just in time to avoid the rock. He rolls again, this time to his feet, as another rock lands where his hip use to be. He dodges another two rocks then is hit in the nuts by one that he didn’t see. He falls to the ground in more pain than he can imagine, as the other students drag him off to the side of the room and take off the blind fold
"Very well done..."The master says with a smile "for a first try that is. You will still need much practice, but you are learning quickly"
Rivin groans in pain as he watches the other students get pelted by stones and one by one set off to the side to tend to there own injuries. After all the students have been placed to the sides. J’tal calls all of them to stand in front of him. Rivin pulls himself to his feet and hobbles into the line as large heavy boxes are places in front of each of them.
"Now, all of you, I want you to lift these boxes with your mind. The two that get the least amount of height will be the first in the next exercise. You will need to hold it up for 1 hour."
Rivin quickly realizes that he must use his anger, and pain and channel just like he did to see the flying rocks. It takes Rivin almost half the hour to even get the box to move, but he does manage to lift the box 2cm off the floor for 5 minutes, Then drops it, feeling exhausted.
"Rivin! Gribal! You two are first. Step forward and grab the training Lightsabers."
Rivin hobbles forward and grabs the metal handle that was offered to him. Gribal does the same flicking a little switch on the handle letting a dark red blade spring forth from the handle.
"Just so you know Rivin." The master says with a hand on his son’s shoulder "These sabers will not kill you, just burn A lot."
Rivin nods then takes up a defensive position, like the ones he saw in the book flicking the switch on like what he saw Gribal do.
Gribal lifts up his training saber and attacks Rivin, bringing the saber down on a left to right slash at Rivin's neck. Rivin steps away from Gribal taping into his well trained self preservation instincts that his mother put into him, and the knowledge that he was reading last night and brings the blade if his saber up to block the in coming attack.
Gribal spins to his left, bringing his saber above his head, then bringing it down quickly into a low swing at Rivin’s legs, but as he does this Rivin steps forward as Gribal’s back is facing him, and swings his saber on an upward right to left swing into Gribal’s back. Gribal senses the attack coming at his back and uses the force to speed up his spin, bringing his blade down and his handle up so that the blade point is facing straight to the floor and his handle is at neck level, He moves the blade between himself and Rivin’s blade. As the blades contact sends a side kick quickly and sharply into Rivin’s pelvis.
Rivin is caught off guard by the speed at which Gribal moved to get in the way of his attack. Their blades contact and quickly Rivin finds himself on the floor, with a very sore pelvis, looking up at the ceiling, and watching it spin due to the way his head hit the floor. His Training Saber also fell out of his hand and just out of his reach when he landed on the floor
Gribal brings his foot down from the kick onto Rivin’s stomach, and brings his blade down in a quick downward thrust driving it into Rivin’s chest. He laughs as Rivin coughs and tries to keep the contents of his stomach down as the foot of his opponent contacts with it’s target, and as Rivin forces his eyes back open after reeling in pain for a brief moment, only to watch in horror as the blade burns through his shirt and flesh down to the bones of his rib cage. The pain so strong that his eyes black out, and he can’t even scream.
J’tal pulls out his Lightsaber and charges at Gribal. He Swings his blade at Gribal, forcing the student to remove the training saber out of Rivin’s Chest so that he could block the incoming Real lightsaber.
"Enough!!" J’tal says as he Force Grips Gribal and lifts him off the ground by his neck. "You know better than that Gribal!! If you do another stunt like that again, It will be my saber in your chest!!"
J’tal Throws Gribal across the room causing him to hit the wall at high speeds. Then he walks back to Rivin picking up a Med-Pack on the way, Letting Gribal Hit the wall, Howling in pain as he crumples to the floor. He then bends down to his son and pours some disinfectant on the deep burn in Rivin’s chest, and slaps a bandage on the wound. At this point Rivin final registers the pain that he is in as the burn comes in contact with the disinfectant. This causes him to scream VERY, VERY LOUD in pain, A pain so intense travels through his body, that with in minutes Rivin is fighting to stay awake.
"There my son. You will live, Though I’m sure that is doesn’t feel like it. You did very well for your first day. And Truthfully I am surprised that you lasted as long as you did. Keep in mind that what Gribal did to you is against the rules, and he will be punished for it. But you need to recover from this. So I will take you to the library now. You can relax for the rest of the day, but I don’t want you to waist it." J’tal says as he picks up his son and takes him to the seat in the library that Rivin occupied the night before.
J’tal leaves Rivin there with a book on basic uses of the force, and goes back down to the training room to start the spars among the other students. Rivin watches as the other students fight with the training sabers, he watches with great glee as Every student gets a chance to spar with the injured Gribal. After saber practice all the students are dismissed, and they go back to their rooms to recover from the days work.
Rivin simply goes to start to read the book placed with him, and finds that he understands what his father was trying to teach him. His anger can work for him, His pain should be embraced, and only then will he become strong. Following the instructions in the book, he embraces his pain, making it hurt even more than it did before. This causes his anger to flare, his anger for Gribal, For what Gribal did to him.
Once this happens Rivin can feel the dark energy flowing through him. He can feel the room around him, he can feel the pain of the other students. Rivin holds on to this moment for as long as he can, as he goes back to the book, learning much about the basics on Force Boosting, Telekinesis, Mind Attacks, Mind Infiltration, Sensing, and pain suppression.
The pain Suppression came quickly, more out of a necessity than anything, but that is about all he had time to practice before it was supper time again, though he had read up on the theory on the other aspects of the book.
Rivin forces himself to walk back down to the training room for supper, though his legs give out on the stairs he catches himself on the railing and makes his way towards his supper, which was of course another bowl of chunky slop. After supper he painfully returned to his chair in the library even before the master could order them to go read. And for that night Rivin remained in that chair, reading till his eyes could no longer stay open. He slept in the chair that night, only to wake up 1 hours later to the other students showing up in the training room for breakfast. Rivin reluctantly went back down for breakfast.
This days training routine was much like it was the day before, started with a run after breakfast, then blind folded defense, followed by lifting the boxes, then saber training. And just as the day before Rivin was the weakest, the slowest, and the most injured, though this time the Telekinesis portion came to him much faster than he expected, and he found that he almost got to being the 3rd lowest, but still he came in second lowest, right over top of Gribal, who was clearly in much pain from the day before, just as Rivin was.
So Rivin ended up being quickly despatched just as he was the day before, and Rivin went off to the side and watched the other two students fight, then Gribal and the other winner fight, all the way examining their moves, their stances, guessing how they used the force to help them fight, and thought of ways to get past the attacks and blocks. And then when the others went to their room to rest, Rivin went to the library until supper, then to supper, then back to the library with all the other students.
This time when the other students went to bed Rivin started to practice what he was reading that day. This pattern went on for sometime, Eating, Training, Reading, Eating, Reading, Self-Training, then 2.5 - 3 hours sleep. Each night Rivin practiced something different than the night before, Giving the young boy a greater range of training, and at least two hours more practice than the other students.
He practiced boosting by trying to jump to the balcony from the training room, or by seeing how fast he could do laps around the room. He practiced Telekinesis by moving the books around in the library then moving them back to where they were suppose to be. He used a broken broom handle that he found in the storage room to practice the swings, stances, and blocks he would use with a lightsaber. He snuck in to other student’s rooms and tried to infiltrate and alter their dreams, but he quickly found that the other students were much better with their minds then he was, and often ended up being punished by the other students that caught him. He also found that Telekinesis came to him the fastest, and the strongest.
But after a few years of this routine Rivin became the first in the morning laps, Able to avoid most of the projectiles with the help of Telekinesis, He could lift his box the highest and for the longest length of time, and he felt he could have beaten all of the students with the training sabers, but for the last two he chose not to win. Though he could easily proven himself the best in his class he chose to hold back and sabotage the other students, by using his powers to help the other students deflect the projectiles when he was on the side lines, and by using the force to lift other people’s boxes for them so that all the others will get their boxes higher than his so that he could spar first and watch the others fight, and by giving the person he spared with a run for their money, but taking the fall when it looks like he was about to win.
Even though this quickly got him being the laughing stalk of all the students Rivin kept it up. Secretly he got stronger at the expense of the other students, excepting the pain if only to practice quelling it, surpassing the others in skill and power, simply because he took as much time as he could to study, and the only one that seemed to notice was Rivin’s master J’tal, though he chose to say nothing about it.
That was his routine, or at least it was until the day after Rivin’s 12th birthday. This day his master changed things. Along with breakfast he brought out the training sabers and a number of funny looking balls, and as he handed out the bowls of slop, he also have each student a saber. After the students were finished eating, J’tal went to talk.
"These are to be your sabers. You have excelled to a point in your training that you should get use to the feeling of having a saber with you at all times. We will also be changing the routine from now on. All our training will continue with the Lightsabers, And from this point on you will learn more advanced training with the blades. As well we will Start practice of Combat Telekinesis. You will all be responsible to keep up your practice with your other skill. But since I am trying to make you into sith warriors, Small parlor tricks will not be of use to you, and thus we will now leave them behind. As before these sabers will not kill, only burn. But this will not change the fact that warriors need exercise. So... 100 laps around the training room!"
At that every student breaks off at a run, all using force boosting to assist in the run. And with the help of the force Rivin remains tied with Gribal in the lead for most of the run, nether will to give the lead to the other. Since over these years Gribal and Rivin were always butting heads, testing the other, trying to get the other to falter at the critical moment. For the most part they played fair but Gribal was starting to see that in this race today fair play will only make him second best, and that was not good enough. Gribal, having his strengths almost opposite to that of Rivin’s decided to take advantage of it. Gribal implanted in Rivin’s poorly defended mind that the wall was 5 meters farther away than it really was, causing Rivin to run full speed into the wall on the 99th lap, causing Rivin fall to the floor with a broken nose, and the wind knocked out of him. Also this made Rivin come in last place.
So after he gets back up to his feet and crosses the finish line. Rivin sends Gribal a glare, the goes along with telepathic message he sends.
I have competed in our little contest with honor and fare play in mind, but this, these actions you have exhibited towards me I see as an act of war. This is no longer a game of strengths, This is now war between us. And in the end Only one of us will leave this cave alive.
Gribal responds only by lifting a middle finger towards Rivin as Rivin is called forward to be the first to test the new training exercise.
"I have no Idea why you ran into the wall"J’tal says "but you came last so that means that you are first for this next exercise. Step forward and draw your saber."
Rivin does as the master commands, wiping a trickle of blood off of his face. J’tal holds up one of the strange metal balls and continues to talk.
"This is a remote. When active it will lock on to the nearest active Lightsaber and fire at the life sign holding the saber. The blaster bolts are not lethal, and will only burn to about the extent of a glancing blow from the training sabers." J’tal goes to put the blind fold on Rivin. "Just as with the projectiles you will need to use the force as your eyes. Though I want you to restrain yourself from dodging, and use your saber to block the blaster bolts. Now with that, we will see how well you will do at this. Activate your saber when you are ready."
Rivin calls on to the Dark Side and opens himself to the force. Feeling the dark energy course through his body into the room. He could see everything, but he could see it on a level that can not been seen with eyes. It was like every slight motion set off a ripple like a stone in the water, and by watching the ripples one could predict speed, motion, and fragments of intent. He had much practice at watching the world through these eyes. Everyday for the last five years he has been using these eyes but it was only two years ago that he truly learned how to see with them, and understand what he was seeing. So Rivin was confidant that he could do this and turns on the saber in his hands.
The remote starts to fly around the room in random pattens, and Rivin slowly turns to face the remote as it moves around him. Then out of nowhere an energy bolt come flying out of the remote towards him. This is something that Rivin had not felt before through the force and thus didn’t respond in time to block the bolt, and letting the bolt painfully dissipate into his right knee cap. Rivin hold back the howl of pain that the child’s instinct inside him wishes to let out. And as soon as the pain hits his body Rivin is using the force to dampen the pain, only to not notice the next bolt hit him in the back of his left shoulder. Rivin quickly shoves his pain off to the side of his mind and focuses on the remote again, as it flutters and gets ready to fire again. This time Rivin notices the signs of it about to shoot, and quickly goes to move his saber into the way of the bolt, and marvels as the bolt ricochets off the red blade and into the wall.
Rivin spins to block another bolt and barely catches it with his blade. He blocks another, and another, and another, but then he feels a burning pain in his rear end. Again quickly shoving the pain aside, he looks out at the rest of the room, only to see that there were now two remotes floating around the room. It only takes Rivin a few moments to focus on both of the remotes, and he leaves himself watching for more.
Rivin only gets hit another 5 times within the next 6 minutes, and deflects approximately 15 more bolts in the process. But then two remotes become three, and the bolts just seem to be coming too fast for him, and for every 2 bolts he blocks another one bolt hits him. This gets very painful very quickly, and after another 10 minuets, 22 deflected bolts, and 11 more that slipped past his blade, Rivin was in too much pain that he could no longer suppress it, but he still tried to continue. That was a bad Idea.
With his pain reeking havoc to his body, his mind losses concentration, and his connection to the force falters. He then sits blind in the center of a sea of pain and blaster bolts, trying to deflect any that he could by flailing his saber rapidly, and failing miserably. Rivin collapse to the floor, with his saber still active and the remote pumping painful energy into his body, until everything goes black due to Rivin passing out due to the pain.
Time passes, and Rivin slowly comes back to his senses, only to see that everybody other than Gribal were on the side lines tending to blaster wounds, and it looks like Gribal is not too far into his turn against the remotes. But it’s clear that he has a large number of burns and he has only gotten to the second remote so far, and is Rivin has anything to say about it Gribal will not make it to the third remote. Rivin painfully pulls himself so that he is sitting upright with his back propped against the wall, and goes to draw on the force to dull his pain again, but finds that he can not dull too much more, so he simply goes to ignore it. It was not too hard to ignore, as long as he was not moving, and he had no intentions of moving more than he had to.
Rivin then goes to focus the force on to Gribal, and uses Telekinesis to gently tap the handle of Gribal’s saber seconds before he was about to block a blaster bolt, and continues to do that till Gribal gives up due to the pain of missing almost every bolt after Rivin wakes up.
After Gribal’s saber is off J’tal gives the students a 10 minute break and approaches Rivin, kneeling next to him when he gets to him.
"You did very well, though I must admit that you persistence will likely get you kill if you keep standing your ground till you fall. I am pleased that you handled yourself as well as you did, though I am wondering what caused you to fall? Do you know why?"
"No Master, I don’t know why. One moment I was able to block the pain I was in, but then It was like I just reached a threshold that I could no longer keep myself dulling the pain any more."
"That is because you absorbed too much." J’tal says as he sits down on the floor. "I have been watching you intently over the last few years, and it is clear that you are using the study resources of this facility in the way they were meant to be used. You have been learning well from the books, and been practicing the skills you have been learning from the books even when they are not being tested in the scheduled practice times. Because of this I am impressed, and I am willing to help you even more than I would for the other students.
First let me explain what happened to you there with the remotes. The method you use to dull you pain was the cause. You see pain is simply electrical impulses that are sent to the brain. The stronger the impulses are the more pain you feel. What you were doing was dulling the pain by absorbing a large portion of the energy pulse, and storing that energy with the force inside of you. But since you were also being attacked with an energy weapon as well as trying to absorb most of your pain, you were also absorbing a large portion of the blaster energy as well. Hence why your burns are not as bad as the others. But you were not dissipating the energy, so as it built up the Force inside you could not hold any more energy with in your body so it forced you to feel the electrical energy by dissipating it into your body. That is why you fell."
Rivin kinda understood what his father was telling him, but there were still some things that confused him.
"But Master? How come It has never done that before? I’ve been dulling my pain like that for the last five years, and It’s never done that before."
"That is because as you rest the energy is slowly draining out of you. Every time you sleep you metaphorical energy storage tanks empty, and until now you have never reached it’s limit."
"But Master, What should I do if it happens again? I don’t want it to cripple me if I am in a real fight and that happens."
J’tal nods as he goes to continue."There are two ways of dispersing all that built up electrical energy. First way, you could let go of you grip on the force and let it flow through you taking the energy with it then reestablishing your grip. Or you could direct the energy towards an appendage and use Telekinesis to create a path of low resistance through the air and direct the energy into another target. This will allow the built electrical energy to travel out of your body and likely cause damage to your opponent."
Rivin had done his research and he has heard of sith that could project electrical arcs from their hands. He knew what it was called. "Force Lightning. That is what you were describing to me. Right?"
"Not exactly. True force lightning can hit multiple targets with electrical energy that has been created and amplified through the force. This method, you are not creating or amplifying the electrical energy, simply absorbing, directing, and dispersing the energy. It can only hit one target, and the damage will depend on the amount of energy you conduct. If you also find yourself without your saber and need to damage a droid or electrocute a stubborn organic, you can absorb energy, from all your nerves, not just the ones that sense pain, as well as energy from sunlight, blaster fire, and power conduits to cause a powerful pseudo force lightning blast. But also understand that this will fatigue you, and will numb the appendage that you conduct the electricity through for a short amount of time, so it is best if you avoid using this, avoid being hurt rather than take the hit and dull the pain."
J’tal then stands as he heads back to the center of the room, calling to the students. "Everybody! The break is over! Line up!"
All the students force themselves to line up in front of their master. As the make their way to the line, J’tal goes to place a large bucket of rocks at each end of the room and attaches shackle on the wall behind the buckets. He says, "Gribal! Go stand behind the bucket on my left. Sindal! Go stand behind the bucket on my right. The two of you did the worst in our previous exercise."
Gribal and Sindal move to their respective locations as J’tal keeps talking.
"This exercise will be on Combat Telekinesis. We will bout the two of you against each other, but like in many combat situations you may not be able to use your hands to guide your power. This is a very good way to test your multitasking capability with your Telekinesis. You will each be chained to the wall on opposite sides of the room and you will each have a bucket of rocks. I will be keeping score on this fight. For every hit you get on the other person you get one point, if that hit is in their head then you will get two points. The first person to reach 20 points wins. The looser will have to stay on the wall, since it is clear that they need more practice. People will be aloud to use their powers in anyway to prevent the rocks from hitting them, and you will have to attack as well as defend or you will not win the fight. If a stone hits the floor it is out of play. If both of you run out of stone it will be a draw, the buckets will be reloaded, and a rematch will be done."
J’tal uses the force to force their arms up to the wall above their head and causes the shackles to latch on to on to the people wrists of the people in front of them. "You can begin when you want" He says as he ushers the others students to the side of the room.
Gribal was clearly far more injured than Sindal from the Remotes, but Gribal was also far more skilled than Sindal, even though his skill may not lie in Telekinesis, he would likely destroy Sindal. Rivin didn’t want that to happen. If Gribal wins then he will get to rest, and Rivin wants to break Gribal. So discreetly Rivin taps into the force, and catches or deflects most of the stones that are flung at Sindal, and helps to guide Sindal’s stones to it’s target. It is not long till Gribal is defeated, and Mawak is sent to face Gribal. Rivin does the same thing to help Mawak as he did to help Sindal, giving Gribal many more bruises. Then it was Rivin’s turn to face Gribal.
Rivin is chained to the wall, and the buckets are refilled. Rivin knew that he could defeat Gribal anytime he wanted to, since he had already more or less done it twice already today, but he wanted to show off. So he causes four rocks to fly out of the bucket, and waits for Gribal to start his attacks.
The first attack came quickly. Gribal causes a stone to fly out of the bucket at a ballistic arc towards Rivin’s head, quickly followed by another rock flying as bullet like speeds on a direct line towards Rivin’s groin. Rivin responds quickly by bringing one of the stones he was levitating down on to the stone that was flying at his privates, knocking it down to the floor and out of play. The stone that is at a nice arc towards his head, Rivin takes his time to get a lock on it and catches the stone one foot from his head, and tosses the stone into his bucket.
The second attack comes just as quickly as the first. This time with three rocks, one flying at his chin, one flying at his left knee, and one flying at his throat. Rivin instinctively tries to dodge but is held back by the shackles, but he can swing himself enough that the stones to his knee and throat miss, but the one aimed to his chin slams into Rivin’s jaw. The blow resounds in his head, as if he was standing in the church bell tower and a wedding was just coming to a close. Rivin losses his concentration and the four stones he was levitating go to fall from the air, one landing in the bucket and the other three hitting the floor. It takes a moment for him to recover from the blow, and in that time Gribal gets another hit to Rivin’s chest and shoulder.
Score: Gribal 4, Rivin 0
Gribal gives himself a moment to smile at Rivin’s damaged body, before he sends another two rocks at Rivin, One at Rivin’s forehead, the other at his pelvis. Rivin realizes that showing off would be a bad idea right now, and goes to focus his attention on winning, like he should have done from the beginning. He gathers himself, and calls the force to his aid, just in time to deflect the stone coming at his pelvis so that it hits the wall and falls to the floor. He also manages to catch the stone that was about to hit his forehead, and sends it flying back at Gribal almost twice as fast as it was moving on it’s way towards him.
Gribal was caught off guard since he was watching for stones coming from Rivin’s bucket and not watching what Rivin was doing with the stones that he was sending at Rivin. The stone hits Gribal in his right shoulder blade and ricochets back up, pegging Gribal in his right ear, causing Gribal to drop the two stones that he was readying to throw at Rivin. One lands on the floor and out of play, the other Rivin catches with the force and sends it on a short high speed flight at Gribal’s left knee. Causing Gribal’s leg to give out from under him making his whole weight hang from his wrists for a moment.
Score: Gribal 4, Rivin 4
While Gribal is just hanging there, regaining his footing , Rivin sends another 3 stones flying towards his opponent, with one going to his throat, another towards his upper pelvis and another going towards Gribal’s nose. Gribal manages get himself standing and notices the two aimed at his upper body with enough time to deflect them to hit the wall instead of him, but the one aimed at Gribal’s pelvis contacts, but instead of hitting his upper pelvis, the rock contacts with Gribal’s testicles causing Gribal to scream in every decibel level from a whisper, quickly rising to levels previously reserved for foghorns and starship engines.
The scream must have been unknowingly enhanced with the force, or it could have been that the main room in the training grounds was acting like an echo chamber, possibly a bit of both, but either way it was loud enough to cause J’tal to cover his ears in pain, and the students, excluding Rivin, to fall to their knees in agony. Rivin being unable to cover his ears or fall to the floor thanks to the shackles was forced to take the full power blast of the scream, rupturing his eardrums. Both Rivin and Gribal go to force back the pain, knowing that the other would try to attack again as soon as they could.
J’tal goes to say something, but only a painful silence could be heard by Rivin and Gribal as Gribal goes to send another stone at Rivin’s ribs who takes the hit and bites back a bit more pain. Rivin was focused on causing Gribal pain, and figured out how he could do it. He uses his Telekinesis to pick up Gribal’s entire bucket of stones, quickly lifting the bucket over Gribal’s head, Rivin flips the bucket upside-down, dumping the stones onto Gribal. At this point J’tal realizes that nether Rivin or Gribal could hear him, so he yells to them telepathically.
"ENOUGH!! You are both too injured to continue. But ether way Rivin wins with his creative use of what was at hand, though for future reference, the buckets must remain on the floor. The score ends at Gribal with five points and Rivin with seventy-two points."
J’tal lets Rivin and Gribal off the wall, both of them falling into a heap on the floor. Rivin guesses that the master has dismissed the rest of the class, but is unsure since he is only talking verbally. After a few moments Rivin looks up and sees his master bring a battered beaten woman up from the basement. He spoke to her for a moment and she went and walk over towards Gribal and kneels over top of him, with J’tal standing behind her his active lightsaber in hand.
Rivin pulls himself up so that he is leaned against the wall, and watches the woman across the main hall as she tends to Gribal’s injuries. He wished he could hear what the three of them were saying across the room, but all he could hear was his a dead silence, and a continuing echo in his head of Gribal’s screams. Even though he was hurting more than he could remember hurting, he figured that the time he passed out due to the pain earlier that day, he was hurting even more then, but it didn’t matter. All that mattered was that he as hurting now, and that he could no longer hear what was going on, and that was driving him crazy.
Rivin sits there for an hour trying to figure out what is going on, but after an hour his Master pulls the woman away for Gribal, saying something to her, which she goes to argue until J’tal kicks the woman in the face and places his lightsaber at her throat, at which she seems to drop the subject. J’tal then moves his saber away from her neck and pulls her to her feet and pushes her towards Rivin.
Moments later she is kneeling down beside him, and Rivin could get a much better look at her. She had long sandy blond hair, and soft blue eyes. Her outfit was a badly ripped long dirty white dress, that barely kept her decent. Her wrists and ankles had marks and bruises that looked much like chains had spent much time around them, and even though her entire body was covered with cuts, bruises, and scars, her skin seems to glow with a peace and calmness that Rivin has never seen. Something else he had never seen before was the look on her face. I was a look of genuine concern for him, and his health.
She places her hand on Rivin’s chest, sending a jolt of pain through his body as her hand touched the fresh bruises and the burns from earlier that day. A calming energy flows from her into his body, stripping his pain from him momentarily. He starts to hear a crackling noise that quickly turns into a muffled garbled sound of the other students talking in the background. Soon Rivin was hearing voices again, and could make out Gribal on the balcony complaining about him and his dirty tactics. He can’t help but smile at that. The woman also couldn’t help but smile a half smile at Rivin due to the fact he could hear again and was responding.
"Hello there," She says quietly "My name is Minisha Xann. How are you feeling?"
Rivin didn’t know really how to respond to her. He had never had somebody feel any sort of concern for him before, especially a female showing concern for him. He couldn’t help but think that she was trying to get him to like her just so that she could hurt him as mush as she could.
"I am Rivin, and I will live." Rivin says with as much strength as he could muster.
"Rivin? Samila Rivin’s little boy? You know I use to live just across the street from your home. You never deserved the kind of abuse that Samila and her daughter Nica gave you. I would have stopped it if it was not for your master capturing me and bringing me here. And if you give me a chance I will try and free you from this cave and the abuse you are receiving here. You just need to help me get a lightsaber."
That’s when something clicked in Rivin’s head. "You are a Jedi!" He says as he pulls away from her.
Minisha quickly grabs Rivin to prevent him from moving away from her. "Sit still! I can’t heal you if you move away!" She says in a normal tone before going back to her whispering. "Yes I am a Jedi, A Jedi Healer. I want to get back to my family but I can not fight him and win if I was alone. I want to help you."
"No you don’t! Get away from me! You’ve helped me enough!" Rivin says pushing her away from him. He was already healed to the point where he could easily function without any more help from her.
"Enough!" J’tal says "Move away from him."
"But he is still hurt! He’s only a young boy! You really shouldn’t put a child like him through this, It will scar him for life!"
"He said he does not need your help anymore, so move away from him if you value having your head on your shoulders!"
Minisha submits and backs away from Rivin, looking at him again with concern and a quiet cry for help. Rivin watches his master take Minisha back down into the basement, A slight twinge of guilt eating away at him. After Minish is out of sight, Rivin pries himself off the floor and goes up to the library to continue his reading.
Two more years pass with the new routine of Breakfast, Running, Remote Practice, and Combat Telekinesis, Reading, Dinner, Enforced Reading, Self-Training, and 2.5 - 3 Hours sleep. Over these years Rivin has gotten more and more skilled with defending his mind from attack, thanks to the two person war that continued to wage of between Rivin and Gribal. Rivin was quickly becoming the strongest of the sith training in that facility, but Gribal was close on his heels, and making Rivin stumble or fault in any part of his training that a mind trick, illusion, force scream, or hampering of his motor control would prevent him from completing tasks.
Of course not all of attempts worked, because as Rivin got stronger with the force, he got stronger with his mind, and quickly learned how to block, deflect, or back feed the force attacks that came to his mind. Of course Rivin also kept up his disruptions of Gribal’s training, using Telekinesis to hamper Gribal when ever he could. Also over these years Rivin got bored of the main room, and wanted to see more. He asked his master if he could go to town and look around there for a bit, but his master only said the Rivin was not yet ready to go be set loose to the rest of the world. Rivin let it at that, but didn’t like it. He started to watch his master heavily, examining his every move that he could watch, and finally, after a year of watching him Rivin learned how to enter the basement, and at the age of 14 years Rivin finally chooses to see what is down there.
Looking at the door, Rivin places his hand on the lock in front of him. Using the force, he taps into the dark energy inside the lock, rearranging it so that the door will open just as he had seen his father do so many times. After the door is open, he steps through, with the doors closing only seconds behind him. He looks down the long dark hallway on the other side of the door, and sees the hallway is lined with heads along the walls. He looks at the names under each head and quickly sees that all the former masters of this facility, with the lightsaber of the person that killed them under the head are on this wall. The heads were encased in a sand moss mixture that has often been used to cast broken bones, but in this case effectively makes the heads encased accurately in stone, to the point where you can still see the looks on their faces when they died. Most of them were in a look of shock or surprise, others were in a look of terror, and few were in a look of acceptance of what was happening. Rivin was fascinated by this gruesome display of recognition of the former master and the students that killed them. He could not keep his eyes off the heads as he makes his way down the hall. Once he had reached the end of the hallway he came out at a cross road. One way, to the right, he could hear the underground river, the other way he could sense his master in his room. Rivin makes a left turn making his way to the room of the master only to quickly back track and move towards the river as his master goes to leave his room and basement.
Rivin reaches the river well before his master reaches the hall of dead masters, and chooses to examine the river for potential escape routes, finding that the only two ways in are through the cave, or a mountain range of completely underground rivers, and the only way out of this room is ether underwater or through the cave he entered from. It was a dead end, but he did find some this interesting. A familiar woman in a cage, chained, and beaten.
"Hello Minisha. It has been sometime since we last spoke."
The woman looks up from the ground to see Rivin standing there. A smile climbs to her face.
"Rivin?! You are one of the last people I thought I would see down here. It’s good to see that you are doing well. I know it was a few years ago since we last had a chance to talk, but have you thought about my offer? Will you help me escape?"
Rivin thinks for a moment, and lowers his head shaking it slightly.
"No, Maybe, I don’t know. I want to leave this cave, but my father.... My master doesn’t think I am ready to leave."
Minisha smiles and shakes her head.
"And he will not think you are ready till you are a slave to him. You have too much free will and you have too much power, you frighten him."
Rivin laughs "My master fears nothing! Let alone his own son!"
"Really? How do you think all those heads ended up on that wall? Do you think those deaths were all accidents? Do you think that your master doesn’t know that the same fate will be his as long as he has students? He knows that unless you are 100% loyal to him, you will be the one to put his head on the wall."
"Do you really think that I would be able to do that? I don’t have the skill to kill him! I don’t even have a real lightsaber!"
"I could teach you how to make the training saber into a real Lightsaber."
Now this conversation had perked Rivin’s interest, but he was still skeptical about what she would get out of this.
"Why would you teach me? What is in this for you?"
Minisha Smiles as much as her pain-filled body would allow her to.
"Okay the catch is, you have to go and get another two training sabers from your master’s room. One of those two will be converted for your use, the other will be for me, and then together we can fight our way out of here. You come with me, and I will continue your teachings, teaching where you will not have to rely on being angry or in pain. You have seen too much pain and suffering in your life D’lar. I don’t want you to see more than you have to. You could come and live with me and my daughters, and you could live a happy life, with no more pain than an average person would get in a life time. What do you think?"
Rivin has to admit, no pain is tempting, but he likes the power that his master has taught him. Also he really doesn’t think that even together they could defeat his master.
"How about we just take this one step at a time. I may not even live long enough to get the other training sabers. Let alone long enough to get out of the cave."
"That is a fare request, but I do ask that if we do make it out of here alive that you consider my offer."
Rivin nods as he turns his back to Minisha.
"I’ll think about it, but I have a lot of work to do, like finding a few more sabers for us. So you just sit tight till I get back, and don’t hold your breath, it may be a while."
Minisha gets a grim smile on her face as she says "It’s not like I have much of a choice. I’ll be here whenever you get back."
Rivin gives Minisha a quick wave goodbye over his shoulder while he walks away, back down the cave towards the crossroads. He reaches out with the force just to make sure he know where his master is, and from as far as Rivin could tell his master was not even in the cave right now. So Rivin goes to head down towards his master’s room.
It’s not long till he gets there, and when he does he sees the boxes of training equipment, as well a many other powerful Sith artifacts that Rivin had no idea what they did or how they worked but he did think they looked interesting. He goes over to the box of training sabers and grabs two of them. He then looks up at the wall to see that there were a number of real lightsabers hanging there. For some reason one of them seemed like it was screaming out Minisha’s name, so he grabs that one as well and goes to head back down the cave towards the underground river again.
When he gets there he calls out to Minisha "Hey! I’m back! And it only took me an hour. I also found this." He says holding out Minisha’s blade.
She can’t help but smile, though she did not seem happy.
"I’m glad you found my blade, but I’m afraid you will have to go and put it back where you found it. If he sees it missing, then we will never have the chance to escape. Leave the training-sabers and quickly go put my saber back, we can retrieve it when we are ready to act."
Rivin had not though about what would happen if something was noticed missing.
Rivin didn’t have much time to act. It was getting close to dinner time and his master would be returning soon to get the slop cooking. In fact his master was opening the doors to the basement right now. He had no time to speak about this to Minisha, he only had time to act. So he quickly turned around and sprinted as fast as he could, with the help of he force, back towards his master’s room. When he gets there he quickly puts the lightsaber back on the wall where he had found it.
He was about to turn and run back down the hallway but he sensed that his master was almost at the intersection of the hallways, and there was no way he would make it back with out being seen. So he quickly looks around the room, and notices a storage room just outside his master’s room. That looked like his best bet, so he sprints to the storage room and closes the door behind him, just at his master comes within view of his room.
Rivin watches as his master walks past the storage room, and starts to set up the large pot in the corner of the room over top of the fire and starts to stir the gruel inside the pot. When Rivin was satisfied that his master was not looking or paying attention to anything in his direction, Rivin quickly and quietly leaves the storage room and heads back to Minisha.
"I got it back before he noticed, and I don’t thing he noticed me as I left to get back here" Rivin says as he comes within sight of the river. "So What do we do with the training sabers?"
Minisha shakes her head. "We do not have time to get started today. Take the sabers and hide them in your room, Bring them back to me the next time your master leaves the cave. Any sooner and he may catch on to us. But you must leave no before your maser calls you for your supper."
Rivin nods and picks up the training sabers and hurries off back to the main room, and then back to his bedroom, searching for a place to hide his new two sabers. He chose a spot at the bottom of one of the drawers of his dresser under his clothing. And hoped that his master wouldn’t notice that he no longer had these two sabers in his large box of training sabers.
A year passed, and finally five days past his 15th birthday the sabers were finished . All Rivin had to do then was to wait of a good time to spring Minisha then the two of them could take on his master. In his late night practices Rivin was practicing with both of his sabers, his real sabers, to make sure that he could use them well. And for the next 3 months that is all that Rivin practiced at night when everybody was meant to be asleep.
Then the time came. His master was going out for a short trip into town, and it was almost time for him to get supper cooking. So Rivin had the time to get down to Minisha, and still confront his master in the main room. Hopefully they could get him before he could close the entrance.
Rivin goes down to the basement and first to his master’s room. He takes Minisha’s saber off the wall and hurries off to the cage, where without saying anything to her he activates one of his sabers and slices off the lock to the cage. As Minisha is opening the door to her cage Rivin hands her lightsaber to her.
"It’s time. We need to try and catch him before he can close the door to the cave."
Minisha nods and takes her saber and activates it, just to make sure that it works. The yellow blade lights the room for a moment before she turns it off again. The two of them hurry down the hall and back up into the main room where Gribal stands facing the door to the basement.
"What’s going on Here Rivin! Your not suppose to be down there! And what is she doing out of her cage!" Gribal yells at Rivin. "Master will find out about this! And then you will be in punishment for the next 15 years!"
Rivin just pulls out both of his sabers and start his way up the steps towards Gribal, activating them as he gets closer.
"Rivin! What are you doing! Where Did you get a second training saber!"
Rivin spins both of the sabers in his hands, letting the sabers cut a small notch out of the step in front of him. Gribal notices this, and Rivin’s narrow gaze as Gribal didn’t make him feall good about this.
"Those are real sabers! But.. How!... Where!... Rivin! Wait! Can’t we work this out!"
"I am about to work this out. I promised you years ago that we were at war, and only one of us would live to leave this cave. And guess what Gribal, I’m leaving."
Minisha speaks up. "D’lar, There is no need to take his life we are only here to kill the master, not the students! He still can be redeemed!"
"This man does not deserve to live! He has been bent on causing me nothing but pain and humiliation! He deserves to die!"
"Pain and humiliation is not a good enough reason to kill him! I’m sure that you have done just as much to him! Does that mean that you deserve to die!"
Rivin doesn’t answer Minisha, and is about to strike towards Gribal when the door to the cave is heard opening. Rivin rushes the entrance, but the door is closed before he even gets to the hall leading to it, And soon Rivin is faced with his master, who is quickly getting angry at what he is seeing.
"Rivin, you better explain what is going on here VERY Quickly! And you Better have a good explanation for why SHE is out of her cage and with her lightsaber!" J’tal says while looking towards Minisha
Rivin Draws both of his sabers to a defensive position as he quickly backs up in to the main room, replying to his master.
"You see father, I’m leaving here, with or without your permission. You have let Sindal, Gribal, and Mawak go to town but you always leave me behind! I’m tired of seeing nothing but the walls of this cave! I’m tired of your abuse! 7 years ago you promised me a life where I could be in control! Where I can have others bow to my feet! But the only way you will let me out of this God-forsaken cave, is If I bow to your feet! Never again will I be forced to another person’s will! Not mother’s and not yours!"
As Rivin talks, his saber’s tips dip towards the floor as he takes a more strong defiant stance deactivating them as the tips approach the floor. He looks back at Minisha, then back at his father.
"She has given me the teaching and the opportunity that I need in order to leave this place, So she will be coming with me."
J’tal Smiles as he draws his lightsaber.
"Those are very strong words coming from only a student. Do you really think that I will let you leave this place alive? You will ether bow before me or die like the fool you are!"
Rivin reactivates both his sabers, and resumes his defensive stance, as he says "I would rather Die then be forced to bow to your feet."
"Then so be it." J’tal replies as his saber springs to life.
Minisha activates her lightsaber, as J’tal charges towards Rivin, his saber raised high, and coming down towards Rivin’s left ear, and moving to slice Rivin down to his right hip.
Calling on the force, and his years of normal and self guided training, Rivin Pivots on right foot so that he is facing his father’s blade as it descends, raising the saber in his left hand to intercept his father’s blade, as he thrusts the saber in his right hand towards J’tal’s heart.
J’tal then pulls his saber back from Rivin’s blade as he dodges to his left to avoiding the thrust towards his chest. This dodge places him on Rivin’s right side about one large step behind him. During the dodge J’tal does a clockwise spin that would bring his saber down towards the back of Rivin’s neck.
Minisha sees that Rivin is not use to fighting at the speeds that J’tal is moving at since as J’tals blade is coming down, it is clear that Rivin will not have the time to preform the block he is intending to do. So Minisha gets a firm grip on he saber, and does a few quick steps, approching from rivin’s left and swings the end of her saber up in to the path of J’tal’s blade connecting with it’s midpoint, and holds her ground, effectively blocking.
Rivin Trusts the force, he knows the moves, he has the skill, but his father clearly has more strength and speed than Rivin. J’tal’s form is crude and sloppy, but with all the skill that Rivin has with the art of lightsaber combat, It does him no good if he can’t hit his opponent. Rivin spins to his right so that he is facing his father again, but he can see that his left saber, that he has raised to his eye level and put parallel to his shoulders, will not make it up to his father’s attack in time to stop it. It looks like it is over already, but Minisha manages to block the attack for him, allowing him to change his block to an attack. Rivin changes his block so that it turns in to a slash at J’tal’s jaw line on the right side of his face. Meanwhile his right saber recovers from the thrust, shifting into a slash for his father’s Right knee.
J’tal retreats into to a backwards roll off his left foot, force pushing his opponents further into the room, back towards the stairs and a confused Gribal. He comes up from the roll into a crouched position 8 meters from the entrance passageway.
Rivin and Minisha are thrown backwards with Rivin deactivating his sabers while in mid air, landing 2 meters from the top of the stairs leading to the basement, and rolling back to his feet. Minisha on the other hand hits Gribal with her back, knocking them both to the far wall of the stairway dropping them to the floor at the bottom of the stairs.
J’tal shifts his saber into his right hand, and holds out his left hand sending a directed bolt of Dark Force Lightning at Rivin. Rivin is hit full in the chest by the lightning sending arcs of electricity across Rivin’s entire body, causing him to crumple to the floor in agony and curl up into a ball.
"You are a fool to think that you could defeat me!" J’tal yells at Rivin "You are a fool to think that you could stand a chance against your master, your father!" J’tal readies his hand to send another bolt of lighting at Rivin "I will give you one last chance to submit to me, One last chance to work by my side, since you have proven you are talented enough for that honor. So choose now my son, Act as my right hand, or die here at my feet."
As his father talked to him, Rivin was dulling his pain in the manner that he always had. Feeling the energy building up in him as he takes the energy away from his nerves that were causing him to feel the pain. Rivin was committed since he started this, he was going to finish this, and not as a slave to his father. His only reply to his father was to spit on his father’s boots.
"So that is your choice son? Very well, death it is." J’tal said as he levels his hand back down toward’s Rivin’s head. Discharging massive levels of energy in to Rivin’s body.
Though since Rivin was absorbing the energy from his nerves, he was also absorbing the force lightning, keeping him alive for longer than most people could handle. What happened next however, happened so fast that it wasn’t until after the fact that Rivin realized what had happened.
Minisha had gathered the strength to pick herself up, and fling herself between J’tal and Rivin, taking the lightning blast off of Rivin. Once she was between the two of them she grabbed J’tal’s hand that was shooting the lightning , keeping it on herself, and forcing J’tal to twist as she flew past and fell to the floor. Rivin takes this moment to force himself back to his feet, the energy levels still building as he keeps his body from registering the pain he is in. He felt himself reaching the breaking point of his ability to hold the energy he had been absorbing, much like what he felt when he was in the lightsaber training with the remote.
Remembering the lesson that his father had given him about discharging that energy, Rivin did just that. He clipped the lightsaber that was in his left hand to his belt and outstretched that hand towards his father, discharging all the energy he had into his father’s side. Once the energy levels were back to safe levels in himself, which was only a few seconds after he released the energy, Rivin went into a spin, activating the saber in his right hand , and brought his blade through his father’s neck. The force lightning stopped, and J’tal fell to the ground like the dead weight he now was.
Rivin then took a deep breath and announced to the other students. "By the Sith laws I am now the master here. Does anybody wish to contest my claim?"
There was no objection from any of the others, including Gribal who had not even made a noise since he hit the bottom of the stairs. Rivin went to check on Gribal, only to find that he was dead. Killed by the impact ether to the wall, or the floor. It didn’t matter, he had cushioned Minisha’s impact with both the wall and the floor, allowing her to help him. At this point he realized that Minisha was still lying on the floor with his dead master.
He rushed over towards her limp body, putting turning off his other lightsaber and placing it at his belt as he took her into his arms. She was still alive, but in very bad shape. He reasoned that if he could take his own pain from his own nerves, what would stop him from doing the same to somebody else. He taped into the anger towards his father, the anger he felt for him injuring her, and used that energy to draw her pain away from her body. Though instead of storing the energy inside himself, he went to gently discharge it back into her, along the nerves that register pleasure. A smile creeps to Minisha’s face as she feels the pain lift, being replaced with pleasure. After another moment her eyes open, and her smile gets bigger as she sees that it is Rivin using his powers for good.
"We did it Minisha. He’s dead. We are free of this cave." he pauses for a moment "At least we will be once I get the strength to move the boulder at the door."
"You did well Rivin." Minisha said in an obviously week tone of voice. "Enjoy your freedom. You have earned it. If only I could enjoy it with you."
"You will be fine! You have to be!" Rivin replied "I won’t let you die! Use your healing powers! You have to live!"
Minisha just smiled and closed her eyes. She was still alive, just putting herself into a healing trance. After Rivin understood what she was doing, he left her alone, choosing to use his energies to preserve his father’s head, just as all the other masters before him were preserved, and to try and move the boulder. It took him only a few hours to preserve his father’s head and place it in the hall of masters, it however took him close to 3 days to move the boulder.
Once the boulder was moved he told the two remaining students to leave and never return. Then moved the boulder back. It wasn’t as secure as it was before, but at least the cave was covered and out of sight. He then lifted Minisha, who was still badly injured from the fight, into his arms and carried her back to the city, and back to her home, to her daughters Alarisa and Cilina Xann.
When they reached Minisha’s home, Alarisa, a girl a few years younger than Rivin’s age, long brown hair, soft brown eyes, came rushing out.
"Mother?!" Alarisa called as she recognized the lady in Rivin’s arms. "Mother! Your back! What happened! Are you alright?! Say something!"
Minisha smiled at her daughter. "Is your sister around? I would like to see her again before it may be too late. I’m weak, using what little energy I have left to keep myself alive."
Alarisa nods and rushes inside calling back to Rivin. "Yes, Um , yah come in! Put mother on her bed! Her room is the second door on the left from the main hall."
Rivin nods in reply and enters the house, moving to the room that Alarisa directed them to. He enters the room and moves to the large bed at the far side of the room, where he places Minisha.
"At least I will die at home, in my own bed." Minisha comments as she looks around the room. "You have done well to bring me this far D’lar. I am free, I am home. That is more than my dream in near memory have ever predicted how this moment would come."
Rivin was about to tell her that he wouldn’t let her die. When Alarisa and another lady entered the room. "Mother! I’m here, Cilina is here too!"
Cilina Rivin’s mind repeated the name in a lapse of wonder over the beauty of both the name and the young lady. She was about the same age as Rivin, maybe a bit older, soft blue eyes that shimmered like the setting sun on a crystal clear lake, long flowing blond hair that drifted gently around her shoulders with every graceful movement of her body. And what a body that was! At least in Rivin’s mind it was a body that would make even a goddess of beauty jealous.
At this point, Rivin’s gawking was interrupted by Minisha. "Girls, it’s so nice to see you again before I die. I know I don’t have the energy to hold on to this world for much longer, So hear me. This young man liberated me from the cage that held me, Killed the man that enslaved me, and still had the strength, and the heart to carry me in his arms so that I may be with my family one last time."
Minisha pauses a moment catching her frail weak breath
"The man he killed was his own father, a Sith that was training this boy. He has no home to speak of. Show this young man the hospitality of our home. Show him that he can live a life without pain, anger, and fear. He has saved me, Now I ask that you girls save him from the life that awaits him if he ventures the dark path any further."
Both Alarisa and Cilina agreed to do their best to honor their mother’s wishes, which brings a smiles to Minisha’s face. Minisha then takes one last breath, and uses it to say... "Thank you girls, I love you." She then glances towards Rivin "I love all three of you. Make me proud." And with those words Minisha closes her eyes, letting the force, and her life escape her.