Combat Training (Mora, Rhoden, Desade)

[Rhoden Carbine]

Rhoden's eyes gliitered. He'd given Mora a bladeless opponent for her first run, he keyed up another more advanced program for himself. It lunged almost before it had finished materializing and slashed a quick back and forth where his stomach had been. But he was no longer there, he had twisted sideways and he grabbed the hologram's arm. The program--capable of recognizing the pressure Rhoden was putting on the arm of his opponent--emitted another accurate cracking sound as the arm was crushed in his grip. The hologram's blade clattered to the ground. Rhoden wrapped one arm around its neck from behind, his hand finding purchase in the hair, and stabbed into the gut. The hologram screamed and blood poured out as Rhoden drug the blade upwards to spill his projected innards onto the floor. The hologram vanished.

He keyed Mora's next hologram, this one armed, this one programmed to fight back. "If you do get hit by the blade you'll receive a slight shock." he said, gesturing for her to engage at her leisure.

[Mora Norith]

The next opponent holds a wicked looking dagger and slashes at Mora's head. She raises her knife and a very real clang of metal against metal echoes in the room. Mora kicks the hologram in the stomach causing it to keel over and back up. With the hologram dazed, Mora rushes forward and knocks the legs out from under it and plunges the knife down into where its heart would be. The hologram gargles and disappears. Mora lets out a quiet giggle and looks up to Rhoden.

"Is that all you got, Commander?" She teases with a smile.

[Rhoden Carbine]

Rhoden smiles, satisfied with Mora's skill and attitude. "Very good. Now, this next opponent will be far more difficult. Do not try to subdue it as you have the past two. Move around it swiftly, slashing when and where you can. The goal is to wear it down over time. Observe." he called up another opponent. It was a difficult one but he could beat it in a head on fight. But he was demonstrating something for Mora. The hologram lunged at him but Rhoden ducked and turned, slid and jumped. The opponent blocked many of Rhoden's opportunistic slashes, but not all of them. It took five minutes but the hologram staggered and fell to its knees. Rhoden stepped forward and deftly plucked the blade from the slackening grip of the hologram. Another quick step and movement and he brought his two blades together in a scissor motion, nearly severing the holograms head.

"The time it takes to subdue an opponent in this manner will vary, in this case I did not hit anything major with my strikes, and so my opponent was able to continue defending itself. If you, for example, hit specific parts of the arms, legs, or neck the opponent may go down fairly early on in the fight. Proceed." another hologram appeared for Mora to face.

[Mora Norith]

The new hologram is much like the last one, and Mora easily evades him just the same. Doing as Rhoden said, she dances around and through the hologram, slashing at his arms, legs, chest, anything that happens to come in contact with her new friend. After ducking and slashing, Mora is surprised to find the hologram's dagger in her other hand. She looks up to see him staggering with cuts of varying depth across his body spilling that same faux blood until he collapses on the ground. The hologram disappears, but the dagger remains in her other hand.

[Rhoden Carbine]

Rhoden smiled again, "Multiple opponents, then. Go." he said. The enemies had materialized and began moving to attack almost before he had gotten the last word out. Mora should be able to take them all on, assuming she made no major mistakes, of course it would be a difficult task regardless.

Rhoden decided there really wasn't anything he could teach her that his program couldn't--particularly since he'd designed it to be so very flexible in some areas. On that matter it would be best to let the young woman continue on her own--at least for blasters. He could step in again when it was time to enter the flight simulators.

[Mora Norith]

A yelp escapes Mora's mouth as she almost gets slashed in the stomach by one of the three holograms that have appeared. Gripping the two daggers harder, she just focuses on not getting hit by the multiple hologram blades and getting out of the middle of this dangerous circle. Mora hisses as a shock travels up her leg and her fiery eyes turn to one of the holograms standing behind her. Dodging the others, she charges the successful one.

His arm comes up to stab her, but Mora meets it with one of her own blades, cutting the forearm off in one swipe. In the same motion, she turns and stabs the hologram in the gut behind her. One down two to go.

Looking up, Mora sees another dagger coming down onto her and crosses her blades over each other and in a scissor motion she cuts the hand off. The owner of the hand swiftly gets a knife in his gut as well soon after.

Now it's a one-on-one fight, Mora with two blades, the hologram one. Mora charges first and at the last second slides between his legs, slashing at the on the way through. The hologram falls with a cry and tries to crawl away from his imminent doom on the floor. Mora takes her time approaching him, letting it suffer and cry out. She takes a deep breath and smiles wickedly. Quickly, she throws a dagger into the hologram's stomach as to let him suffer more. A gargle escapes the hologram's mouth and the faux blood begins to spill out of him mouth. Figuring this has gone on long enough, Mora kneels down beside the man and plunges her other dagger into its chest. She drags it down his torso.

Blood is on her legs, arms, hands, and a splatter on her face. She takes a deep breath and can smell the irony blood stench fill the air. Mora looks across the room and see the other holograms remain laying on the ground in a pool of their own blood. That all disappears as the bodies fade, leaving the room and Mora clean of blood.

Mora, feeling a little giddy, stands up and turns to Rhoden. She raises her arms and gives him a silly little bow with a silly little smile.

"Voila." She says along with the bow.

[Rhoden Carbine]

Mora does well, her only error a momentary lapse early on in the fight, possibly an affect of the unexpectedly fast attack by multiple opponents. Other than that she slaughters the holographic fools. "Good. Very good." he said, clapping lightly as she bowed.

"Now I expect you to keep practicing what we've already covered, experiment, whatever you'd like. As for blasters, the program will be able to run you through those without my help. Train daily, I'll evaluate your progress in two weeks' time." he smiled, "And then," he said, "I have a mission for us."

[Mora Norith]

Mora practically skips down the halls after her blade training with Rhoden. A mission! What could it be and what exciting place would they be traveling to? She giggles in excitement at the thought of finally going out into the galaxy and using her new abilities. Returning to her room, Mora picks up her dagger and straps it to her thigh. Now that she's practicing with blades, Mora feels better with it on her at the ready.

For the next two weeks, Mora starts her training with blade work. Considering it's the same moves as hand-to-hand combat just with a weapon, she gets to focus more on learning with blasters. The first day, Mora notices what looks like a training blaster off to the side. When she picks it up, a sudden bing noise sounds and Mora spins around to see a hologram running at her. Almost out of instinct, she raises the blaster and pulls the trigger. The bolt flies through the hologram, causing it to instantly tumble to the ground and disappear. Mora looks at the blaster in amazement.

Another bing sounds and Mora whips her head up to see two holograms now running towards her. She hits the first one, but has to duck under the second holograms arm as it tries to punch her. Out of habit, Mora unsheathes her dagger and plunges it into the hologram's side. This kind of automatic generation of holograms goes on for a while. Usually multiple are used and a few have weapons of their own, but never other blasters.

After killing the last hologram, another bing sounds but this time Mora's training blaster disappears, signalling her session is over.



The days after follow the same pattern: hand to hand/blade training, then blaster training. The blaster training varied, sometimes Mora was facing multiple holograms with various other weapons, and other times she was put into a scenario with cover and face other holograms with blasters. After the two weeks are over, Mora is now skilled in hand to hand combat, blades, and blasters. She knows how to face multiple enemies at once and powerful ones in one on one combat.

On the last day, Mora walks into the holodeck and program, now in tune with her training, creates multiple holograms all armed with daggers for her to play with. She slaughters them all and the deck moves on to blasters. One appears in her hand and Mora goes through the moves of fighting opponents with other weapons. After that the deck changes into a grassy clearing with huge boulders scattered throughout for blaster on blaster training. This tests Mora's reflexes for an enemy could come from anywhere at any time.

Mora kills the last hologram and the clearing disappears. The sound of clapping starts and Mora looks up, surprised, to see Rhoden on the side clapping and smiling.

[Rhoden Carbine]

Rhoden observed Mora remotely as she ran through her training session for the day. She had improved greatly and was doing well with blasters. She made fewer mistakes and moved more skillfully, she also showed decent tactical skills by manipulating the battlefields to her advantage. Once the program entered its final stage he entered.

He smiled as she finished and began clapping, "Very good, very good." he said. "Now. A real challenge." he said. "You will be placed in a scenario. The holodeck will generate a city. It will also generate opponents. Your goal is to survive and make it to a ship, which will be marked on your HUD. Which brings us to..." he trailed off and Stalker walked in pushing a cart. "I must say, sir, this is most insulting--I'm not a pack mule!" Rhoden waved a hand at the droid, "Shut up." he said, "I've retrieved for you some armor, it is the standard for Inferno Squad members, not bearing marking yet--if you want to join us the job is yours. Your application? This test. Your interview? Our mission." he smiled, "No pressure. And good luck." he walked out of the holodeck with Stalker and into an adjoining room to observe Mora.

"Computer, location: New Jedha City. Time: night. Weather: cold, snow." he said. There was a beep and the appropriate scenario appeared. "Mode: Hunt, ship escape, spaceport farthest from player." he said. Another beep, nothing appearerd within his view of Mora this time but the map on the wall updated to show the ship and positions of opponents. "Outfit opponents. Shadowguard armor and robes, randomize profession and equipment accordingly. Difficulty: 7." he said. Another beep. "This is going to be fun." Stalker said happily from beside him.

He pressed a button and spoke, "Begin." there was a blast like a cannon as his voice echoed through the holodeck. And so it began.

[Mora Norith]

Mora puts on the armor Rhoden brought for her while he explains the test she will be partaking in today. The armor is light-weight and allows for a good range of motion. She walks to the center of the room while Rhoden and the droid leave to give the holodeck the information for her test.

The room shimmers and Mora is surprised to find herself back in New Jedha City. The sky darkens to night time and Mora groans a little when snow begins to appear in the air and on the ground. Trying to avoid whatever enemies Rhoden puts into the system without a fight will be near impossible with the crunching of snow alerting them to her every move. With a sigh, Mora lifts her arm up and the HUD activates pulling up a map with a beacon of Mora's target. In order to get to the beacon Mora will have to cross the entire city it seems which gives the computer a lot of room to fill up with opponents.

The map disappears and Rhoden's voice echoes through the deck from some unseen room and the test begins.

Mora keeps to the side of the road and begins to move into the center of the city. As she keeps to the shadows, Mora keeps her eyes wide and vigilant, looking for any noticeable hostiles. She spots a man wearing armor similar to hers leaning up against a building and scanning the crowd of citizens before him. Mora takes a turn before she moves into his field of vision and uses some old crates to hop up onto the roof. Up here Mora is more likely to be spotted, but she doesn't see any enemy silhouettes around her so she continues on, prepared to drop into the streets at any time to hide among the crowd.