"I didn't lie about learning quickly," Jana said quietly. "But your guess about the barrier is correct. I do know of it." She paused. "What's your interest in it? What it hides? My past. I've not been living long. I am only as old as I appear to be. But in those sixteen years, I have experienced more than anyone my age will know in a lifetime."

A look of pain passed through her eyes, but was quickly banished as her face became once more emotionless.

"Knowing how to heal myself was simple," she went on. "I've seen Masters do it during training... creating simple scratches and using the Force to heal them. I've been to the healers for more serious injuries. I felt what they were doing and imitated it the next time I got hurt." She shrugged. It really isn't that difficult."

"What happened to you?" Asked Kelso.

Jana winced visibly. "I don't want to talk about it."

Kelso nodded. "All right. I respect that. So why don't you tell me what else you have learned."

"Anything I've seen Masters do," Jana answered. She winced again. "Even some... darker things."

Kelso sighed. "Tell me some of the darker things. And don't worry. I'm not going to throw you out of the airlock or have exiled. I just need to know."

"I don't..." Jana began. Then, she sighed. "Alright, but I couldn't tell you any specific names. There's what's like lightning coming from my hand." She demonstrated with a surprising lack of emotion, sending the blue bolts into the floor. "Choke, which I won't demonstrate. I've learned to drain the life energy and Force energy from any living thing. I won't demonstrate that either."

She fell into a thoughtful silence. "Those are the main ones, but they aren't the worst. There's something else... it basically crushes the thing I focus on..." She lifted a small stool with the Force and quickly closed her hand. There was a very loud noise and the stool was flattened as if a very heavy ship had just been set down on top of it.

"There's something that works far slower than the drain I told you of earlier," she went on. "It causes a great deal of pain and a very slow death." She shuddered. "But though I know how to do it, I am very reluctant to do so." Another shiver ran down her spine. "I think from my description, you may understand why."

Kelso nodded. Training her was going to be hard. He'd only trained one apprentice, a long time ago. Now he had one that knew a lot of things she shouldn't....or perhaps that wasn't the correct word.

"Do you feel anything when you use them?"

Jana nodded. "Pain. Pain of the one I use them on. Pain because I'm using them. Sorrow that there seems to be no other way to accomplish what must be done."

"That's good. I don't sense evil in you. There's some darkness, yes. But knowing how to do those things will do it to you. Now, who did you see using those powers?"

Jana hesitated. She wasn't sure she wanted to tell him.

"This is very important." Said Kelso, sensing her hesitation. "We're in this together now."

Tears began to form in Jana's eyes. "My... my father..." And she began crying softly.

Kelso was shocked by the answer, but didn't show it. He put an arm around Jana to comfort her, and tried to send reassurance through the force.

His reassurance was mixed with his shock and Jana felt both through the Force. She pulled away and stared up at him, brushing the tears out of her eyes. "I've surprised you."

"You have. Not just your history but your skills too. When I came, you said you were advanced, but I didn't know how far ahead." He smiled. "You're farther ahead than I thought you were. To be honest, I don't even know how to begin teaching you, so I'm asking you: What area do you think you need to work on?"

"Well, Yery." began Kyle "Since it seems like that you don't wish to practise levitation, then let's proceed to something else. What do you believe that are your strongest amongst Force Powers?"

"My best Force Powers?" asked Yery. "Without a doubt, they are
Heal, Burst of Speed, and Stasis. I'm also rather good at Throw
Lightsaber, since I let the Force do all of the work there instead
of me. Would you like a demonstration, Master Soran?"

At a pleased nod from Kyle, Yery threw her emerald Consular's saber.

The blade whirled effortlessly into a trash receptacle, vaporizing both
it and the crumpled paper contents inside. "I'll pay for that," said Yery.
"Although, I do think that this Force Power would be a lot more effective
if I could master the double blades." She sighed wistfully. "The saberstaff!"

Jana frowned thoughtfully. Finally, she said, "I can fight what I see easily. But the Force allows some to vanish," as she said this, she disappeared from sight and her disembodied voice continued. "Though I can accomplish this also, I cannot fight those who have done it." She reappeared. "I can't sense them in the Force like I should."

Kyle stood shocked at the sight he had just seen. The lightsabre turned an enitre trash receptacle into scattered atoms and molecules.
"Well... That was impressive, I must say." began Kyle after calming himself down "Although your skill is impressive, you have to learn to control its devestating power... Or maybe I am wrong: The devestating power is the direct outcome of you being able to control it. So we'll begin with Healing first. Are you ready?"

"We'll work on that." Said Kelso. He disappeared, his voice seemed to come at Jana from all directions.

"Concentrate. Open yourself fully to the force, and trust your instincts. Try to find me."

Kelso carefully guided her with the force, showing her how.

Yery nodded. "At your command, Master Soran."

((Note: I will be going on a business trip tomorrow, but I should
be back Tuesday night. I've been a road-trip junkie lately!))

True to what she'd said before, Jana learned quickly. It didn't take more than a minute for her to locate him. The second time they tried, she cut that time in half. The third time, she found him almost instantly.

"Good." Commented Kelso after the third time. "You learn fast."

"Thank you, master," Jana said quietly. The smug self-confidence she'd shown before did not show itself now. She sounded surprisingly subdued.

"All right, now we go for something harder."

He opened a box full of small training drones and grabbed a handful.

"Now you'll have to defend yourself against invisible enemies. Ready?"

Jana hesitated before nodding slowly.

"All right then."

He activated the drones and threw them into the air. As soon as they left his hand, they disappeared. He stood back, and watched.

After several minutes of work with the remotes, Jana managed to find them all. She'd been hit several times, but was now to the point where none of the remotes were hitting her, even after they'd moved. She could still keep track of where they were. One by one, she deflected their bolts back at them, deactivating them.

After all the drones were deactivated, Kelso picked them up.

"That's good. You're learning fast." He said. "Do you feel the difference now?"

Jana nodded wordlessly.

"Good. You're progressing well. Do you want a rest?"

"No," Jana answered quietly. "I'd best not."

Kelso smiled. That was the answer he'd been looking for.

"All right, let's see how fast you find them this time."

That time he grabbed two handfuls. He wanted to measure her progress.

After the first test, Jana found it significantly easier to locate the remotes. She'd deactivated all of them in just under two minutes, often catching two or three with the same deflected bolt as it would skim just over or just under or just around one and do the same with another before embedding itself in the third.

Kelso picked up the remotes again, and frowned.

"We're going to need to get that time down to under a minute."

"Yes, Master," Jana said obediently. "Again, then."

Kelso re-activated the drones, and stepped back to watch again.

"Now, you see, the way Healing functions it is like a blessing from another person. You have to understand or feel the pain the person is experiencing, and you have to know that puring his or her emotions will help them heal. You have to focus on that wound. Let me demonstrate."

Kyle took of his metal glove that was attached to his armor. He pulled a little dagger from his belt and cut his hand a bit on th top side. He forwarded the hand to Yery.

"Try and heal it."

Yery was horrified. She had seen injured people before--and she had often
been injured many times herself!--but never had she seen someone wound
himself on purpose in order to test her, to train her. She breathed hard.

"Blood doesn't make me feel faint," said Yery, "or at least not normally."
She saw the grimace on Kyle's face and felt a deep pain in her gut.
Indeed, she understood his pain, and she also understood how much
control and courage it must have taken Kyle to wound himself for her.

Yery put both of her hands on his, surrounding his palm in a cup of heat.
Silently asking the Force to guide her, Yery counted seconds. "One, one
thousand, two, one thousand..." She felt Kyle's blood start to get sticky.

Kyle removed his hand and saw the wound form a sticky layer of blood. He watched it for a second, trying to sustain the pain that was released a few seconds ago, but instead of saying 'Ow' he shivered noticably.

"Good." commented Kyle and put his metal glove back on.
"Now we will see how good are you with stasis."
"The first thing you must know about stasis." began Kyle "Is to know on which parts of the body to focus on and put presure on. This will cause the person or animal to hold still, unable to move. Those parts of the body are like weak points: everyone has them and applying presure to them, affects the person entirely. You can locate those parts of the body by trying to feel it. It's no that hard."
Kyle spread his hands for a moment and put them behind his back.
"Try it on me and hold the presure for a few minutes. Just please don't do it for too long."

Yery closed her eyes and focused on what she thought were Kyle's
'pressure points'. "The radial arteries," she thought to herself. "Five
seconds should do it, but what if I squeeze too hard?" She was afraid.

Then she remembered the words of the Jedi Code, taught to her only
a short time ago as part of her training: "There is no emotion, there is peace."

She reached out through the Force and squeezed, but gently. For five
seconds, Yery concentrated, hoping that Kyle wasn't just standing there
to encourage her. She hoped his hands were pinned, and not just resting.

Kyle halted himself for a while and he thought that maybe he could move. But when he tried he couldn't, he couldn't move, speak or breath. After 5 seconds he caught his breath.

"Very good, Yery." complimented Kyle.

"Now let's see if you can release the Force and hold me tight for 10 seconds, but that you don't stand in one position. If you manage to make me hold still and come and hit me in torso, you have then imrpoved Stasis to a very high level. Try it."

Yery squeezed Kyle once again, this time near his belly. It was
primarily the torso she wanted to keep still, and she knew the
solar plexus area of any individual was vulnerable. The young
Padawan counted to ten, by thousands as was legitimate, and
strode up to Kyle, slapping his belly with a not-very-hard punch.

"How was that?" she asked after releasing him. Then, revealing
a fear of hers about the Stasis power, she asked, "If I squeeze
too hard, or in anger like the Sith do, could this kill you, Master?"

Kyle laughed and smiled.
"Nonsense. You didn't do anything wrong. Besides, I just showed you how to do it that's all." he said cleaning the dust off of his robes "And no, Force Stasis is not Force Crush or Choke. You can only hold the bones together; the individual only won't be able to move."

"Now." began Kyle "We will try and see how can you use burst of speed."
Kyle turned around and moved away a bit from Yery. He moved a part of his robes away and pulled out his white light sabre, turning around.
"Now initiate Force Speed and see if you can knock my light sabre out of my hand."

Uggh. Force Speed. This, out of all tests, was the one Yery dreaded.

She had never been agile as a child, not being able to run and play as fast with
the other children her age. As a result, Yery had turned more to datapads,
learning as much as she could about the world around her and the Force.

Is this cheating? Yery whispered, "Dvukhsotniy!", and rushed forward.

"No, it's not." said Kyle calmly while Yery rushed towards him.
He stepped with one leg backwards and slashed his light sabre to the left and blocked Yery's forward attack.

Yery, her senses heightened by Kyle's block, whirled around and tried
to grab Kyle's lightsaber out of his left hand, but the weapon proved
elusive. She quickly released Stasis on his wrist, and the lightsaber fell.

The young Padawan picked it up, glad that at least something worked.

Kyle was caught in great surprise at what he just experienced. How come I didn't think of that he thought. He then forwarded his hand and Yery gave him the lightsabre.
"Uh... Let's try now, without Force Speed."

He moved a few steps back and twirled the light sabre in clockwise circles; left, right and then he lowered himself to his right holding the sabre with his both hands.

Yery rushed forward, but it was at this moment that Kyle realized Yery's "rush"
was more like a slow jog. All that the girl had to rely on now was the hidden
power in her wrists and the strength of her will. Would she pass this challenge?

Grab the metal part of the lightsaber, not the blade! Yery told herself.
She grabbed hold of the metal handle of Kyle's lightsaber, warm from its
Master's hands, and began to pull. And pull. And pull harder. She thought
that maybe Kyle had learned how to defend against her Stasis trick, but
if that were true, what could she do now? She thought she'd heard of a
Force Power that would pull an out-of-reach saber to a user, and she tried it.

It didn't work. She could feel the Force tugging toward her, but the saber
remained firmly in Kyle's hands. "Chyort, chyort," she grumbled. "Why
won't this work? I thought it was supposed to pull a lightsaber toward you."