Evolution (Training)

[Professor Mors]

(Events continued from previous application/post)


After twelve hours submerged in that hellish bog, Sa'ato had recovered enough to where the Force need not literally hold him together. When he emerged from the putrid, stagnant water, the Neti observed it was still dark out, not uncommon for this time of year on Trandosha, when nearby Kashyyyk was in contest with its suns for illumination due to a fluke orbit. Evidently, the path ahead was clear: the hunters had surely retired, barring maybe a single scout. Now disguised with the stench of muck and neighboring protozoa, the professor made up his mind to close in on the enemy camp, dispel its denizens, and rescue his lost Massassi. Through the Force it was simple enough to detect the wayward Sithspawn, even from a distance.

The greeting of much loud snoring as the Neti eventually reached the camp clearing emboldened him, perhaps too greatly. Passing through a muddy patch of earth, the professor failed to notice, much less sense the tethers of a slow, delayed dart launcher growing more taut as he inched closer and closer to the tents. By the time Sa'ato finally realized his error it was too late, and a trio of vile needles had flown home to roost in the back of his calf. Dizziness washed over the professor almost instantaneously. He certainly couldn't complete the mission stumbling around- and he wouldn't return to the Order at all if he succumbed to this foul brew altogether. So the checklist expanded: find a cure, then find vengeance…

[Begin Force Level 7 Application]

Panicking slightly, the Neti lashed out with his thoughts, hungrily seeking the person, or mind that had concocted the toxin now coursing through his veins. In total, he sensed four lifeforms. If Sa'ato knew anything about his own excursions with poisoning it was that it was hardly a hobby for the young. He closed his eyes and concentrated. The Neti observed the aura of the camp dwellers once more, focusing more clearly on the hue and intensity of each font of life energy. Eventually, he locked onto one whose cosmic signature seemed depleted, less brilliant. A certain discoloration of their essence perhaps evoked illness, or more advanced age than the academic was expecting.

Nonetheless, when the wobbling Neti stole into the tent housing this particular entity, he was somewhat vindicated. A venerable Trandoshan lay sprawled on a sleeping mat before him, clearly suffering from some infection in his facial scales, and almost dead to the world from copious amounts of odorous alcohol. Thankfully for Sa'ato, the poisoners workbench and materials were just as messy, but visible as their owner. It would not be so simple as to feel out a cure with his mind. The Neti needed a working knowledge of what he was up against and how to defeat it. He glanced at the assembled materials, some stained with liquor and others with scale shavings. There were too many missives to read while fighting the clock: if Sa'ato was to survive, he would need his ethereal ally once more.

Thankfully, Sa'ato had once taken a basic elective course on Dosh, and his secondary doctorate in biochemistry spoke for itself. With this foundation in hand, the Neti opened his mind to the Force, bade it to swell round the crown of his head and amplify his neural abilities. The professor began slowly, but found himself clearing paragraphs, absorbing the names of local flora, as well as their many lethal combinations with each blink of an eye. As his comprehension improved and accelerated further, the written characters, concepts, even whole sentences blurred or failed to register while Sa'ato's supercharged neurons ravenously dug out and consumed the overarching ideas and data from each alchemical treatise.

In a matter of minutes, the Force-attuned academic had ingested all the information available to him. There was only one problem– the slumbering poisoner was completely out of stock! If Sa'ato wanted a cure, he would have to look outside the realm of traditional medicine. His investigation had revealed the nature of his lilliputian foe– a vile neurotoxin which, throughout, had continued to infiltrate and innervate the Neti's lower body at a remarkable rate. Still, considering the professor's body was more nervous system than anything else, he had to take action immediately before his basic mental and motor functions gave way and he was reduced to a catatonic state.

Shutting his eyes more tightly, as if to induce greater concentration, Sa'ato called on the Force to aid in detoxifying his compromised innards. Rather than try and force the foul mixture out of his body from the get go, the Neti let the cosmos guide him, and felt his energy field fragment and split into countless, microscopic droplets. Keeping his mind centered on these beads of pure essence, the professor nudged, corralled, and encouraged them to envelop each and every cell wall currently under attack, and those further up his torso that were soon to be at risk. The idea was simple in practice– psychically reinforce the Neti's numerous nerve endings and starve the toxin of targets.

It was a laborious, meticulous process, but after some time, Sa'ato succeeded in cordoning off the potential danger zones in and around his bloodstream. All that remained from there was to take out the trash. Inhaling forcefully, the Neti altered the flow of his circulatory system, and mentally willed his oaken pores open as wide as they would go. He then 'exhaled' from out his entire person, expelling a Sa'ato-sized cloud of CO2 which contained, then harmlessly dispersed every last trace of the vile mixture into the night air. Thus recovered, the professor considered simply extracting his lost Massassi via stealth and vanishing without a trace. Much as the Dark Side coaxed him to massacre these marauders, there would be little material gain in doing so.

Nonetheless, just as the academic turned to leave the poisoner's tent, he sent a veritable tower of empty bottles unceremoniously crashing to the ground. While he was older, the previously comatose Trandoshan sprang to life in an instant, and leapt up at Sa'ato teeth-bared and vibroblade drawn. Having not forgotten the toxic peril from before, Sa'ato narrowed his eyes and channeled his rage, catching the knife-hand at the wrist and clamping sinuous, strangulating digits over the reptile's gaping maw. Squeezing more tightly at the weapon arm, the professor first delivered a hellish, pyrokinetic rug burn to the Trandoshan's flesh using a non-exhaustive fuel of negative thoughts.

The old hunter howled in agony beneath Sa'ato's clenched digits, until the pain and odor of fried scales compelled them to drop the blade. But the Neti was not done with him yet– no good deed went unpunished after all. Recalling the notes he had sprinted through earlier, the professor began to visualize a particularly nasty hemotoxin that was known to be effective to locals and offworlders alike. Now, with his target trapped and unarmed, the academic pruned, plied, and polluted his own aura before quite literally ramming it down the lizard's gullet. This Force contagion latched onto every blood cell in sight, sapping them of their momentum, integrity, and vital oxygen supply.

The captive Trandoshan changed color multiple times, shuddering and writing about as the Neti maintained his concentration, spreading the mythical affliction throughout their entire system and wreaking havoc on their frail homeostasis. When Sa'ato sensed that there were no more nests in which his infection could roost, he finally let go, and watched his would-be assassin crumple into a twitching, deflated heap. Unsure whether the other hunters had been awakened by the scuffle, the Neti moved to exit the tent once more, albeit more cautiously. This time he received an immediate answer, as a cylindrical device flew right past his head and detonated in a cloud of yellowish smoke.

Sa'ato quickly recognized a gaseous sedative, but not a particularly powerful one. Deep breathing and centering his mind on his own energy field were enough to dispel this latest strike against his consciousness: but the academic wasn't about to entertain a second or a third. Thus, when a trio of gas canisters whistled toward him from on high, the Neti extended a hand as if to greet them, before squeezing his digits into a tight fist and telekinetically halting their advance in midair. Having caught them in his mental vicegrip, Sa'ato flicked his arm toward the ground some five feet ahead of him, and watched the virulent containers detonate from an ineffective distance. All the while, his preternatural sense of danger flared at the edges of his essence.

A flanking maneuver: two life signs, moving fast, and likely banking that the gas attack would slow their opponent. A poor assumption, and one that Neti was more than happy to accommodate. Eyeing the noxious yellow semi-opaque cloud seeping from the ruined canisters, Sa'ato drew the Force around him, then sent it spiraling outward. Mentally latching onto as much moisture from the dense, swampy air as his thoughts would allow, the professor began to wrap the nascent sleep agent in a pair of bubble-like spheres. The academic blinked, and the ambushing duo materialized, weapons drawn and ready to go in for the kill. Smirking, the retired teacher flicked a sinuous finger at each aggressor, and looked on with malicious curiosity.

Each orb rapidly flew out and found their mark, detonating directly onto the scaly face of each assailant. The gravimetric force of the watery shell delivered minor cuts and blistered the shale-like skin, while the sleep gas burst into unprotected eyes, nostrils and mouths. From there, only a single blow to the gut was necessary to lay low the pair. There was little opportunity for rest however, as the lone Trandoshan who had been operating the gas launcher from before broke cover, swords drawn and fixing to prevail where their comrades had not. Sa'ato, in turn, unclipped his lightsaber from its place on his belt, thumbed the activation, and swept it up into a high guard.

The Trandoshan opened the melee, swinging out with one blade and curving his entire body to lash out with its twin in rapid succession. The Neti, for his part, quieted his mind and let the Force, and his training, manifest through feeling and instinct. Catching and parrying both attacks as if his saber were a mere extension of his body, the professor drew on his aggressive intent, and swiped viciously at his opponent's legs. It was perhaps only thanks to years of headhunting that provided the Trandoshan the necessary agility to avoid a loss of limb. All the same, Sa'ato had succeeded in forcing them off-balance. Summoning the power of the cosmos to his legs, the Neti took a tremendous, enhanced leap, the tip of his orange blade crackling through the air in a furious thrust.

A thrust which, to the academic's momentary amazement, was caught in the teeth of a silver trident– the sentry, it seemed, had returned to camp just in time to aid their compatriot. The newcomer Trandoshan, bigger and bulkier than the rest, whipped his polearm to one side, intent to either toss off or disarm the Neti. Sa'ato elected to endure the latter, tumbling backward through the muck before rolling up onto one knee and igniting his shoto. He quickly rose to his feet, assumed another defensive posture, and narrowed gilt eyes. Against such opponents he would have to divide and conquer, trust that his instincts and the Force could provide the necessary opening.

The reptilian warriors, not about to waste their numerical advantage, circled slowly round, until both lashed out from either side of the Neti with furious speed. Time dripped to a near standstill in Sa'ato's mind. He had run and rehearsed such dilemmas with training droids again and again. The difference in length between the polearm and vibrosword across the way registered not as a thought but as an emotional response– a physiological sensation born from the union of intense training and a psychic connection to the professor's lightweapon. As naturally as breathing, he intercepted the prongs of the trident with his shoto and sent them harmlessly stabbing down into the earth.

In the same breath, Sa'ato spun and cut the sword-toting Trandoshan to the quick with his main saber, neatly severing the blade of their vibroweapon just below the hilt, and following through with the inherent ferocity the Djem So to carve a lethal gash from shoulder to midsection. The trident-bearer screeched with rage as their comrade fell, and quickly recovered themselves for a lightning-fast counterattack. The gleaming silver polearm flashed out again and again, almost too fast to track visually. Unfortunately for the huntsman, the professor's tutelage with his arsenal had transcended the advanced maneuvers. His skill would not be denied, and the Neti began to toy with his foe, repeatedly swatting their trident away or forcing a bind between their weapons to heighten fatigue.

With one last defiant cry, the marauding hunter channeled the last of their strength into an overhead strike. Sa'ato, with poise, determination, and newly-gained proficiency, sidestepped the endeavor entirely, cleaving hands from wrists with his main saber and imparting a victor's mercy to the reptile's chest with his shoto. At last, it was over. And while the whole affair had tried him, exhausted him, and threatened his life repeatedly, the professor felt an odd sense of satisfaction, as if he had passed an informal exam of his recently-cultivated abilities. Yes, as he walked over to the reinforced cage in which his lost Massassi was sedated and entrapped, Sa'ato deemed this to all be fieldwork of a kind: bloody, but fruitful…

[End Force Level 7 Application, 2012 Words]