Disarm: Developing Control

[Aaron Belargic]

Aaron Belargic awoke from his meditation and rose to his feet, feeling rejuvenated. For the greater part of the morning he had been alone in a training room, simply allowing his mind to rove over what was currently going on in and around the Order. In all his time here so far he had only engaged in one spar, with Helenias Evenstar, and had spent the rest of the time causing trouble, it seemed. Now was the time to regain his old strengths.

For today’s solitary practice he had brought a number of items. They were piled up in the corner of the room and he would come to each when it was time. Aaron lay down in the middle of the room, with his feet against the ground and knees raised. He extended his arms above his head and began to concentrate.

[Aaron Belargic]

For a Jedi the feeling of the Force was supposed to come naturally and for Aaron this was true to a degree. He could feel it around him, as if with a sixth sense. What he found more difficult was feeling it in himself. Looking up into his spread fingertips, framed with the light spilling in the window pane, he inhaled and exhaled slowly, keeping his breathing calm and steady. Sure enough soon he began to feel a tingling in them as the Force spread through his limbs and warmed his skin.

The Force was did not have a passing interest. It did not look upon a Jedi in their moment of need and then drift away to aid others when the need was no longer there. It was omnipresent and all encompassing. Aaron recalled just how he had felt when he had first touched it and these happy memories brought a further ebbing sensation upon him.

He brought his hands together, rubbing his palms together and felt the gentle friction of his skin and the compressed Force connecting. It was an odd feeling, sort of like having pins and needles only without the dull numbness. It made him smile somewhat and he spread his hands back out, palms facing upwards.

To anyone walking past it would have seemed an odd thing for him to be doing, but he knew what the purpose was.

[Aaron Belargic]

Aaron knew what was inside the box beside him. Among other things there were several heavy objects that, even though he may have been a strong young man, could not lift. These included solid metal spheres or varying sizes. There was also a telescopic pole, which he had acquired not too long ago from a vendor on Coruscant who professed it was a formidable weapon. Aaron did not think this was as such but imagined it would be useful for training.

He began to focus on the smallest of the spheres in the box and willed the Force to bring it to him. Mentally visualizing the orb rising and focusing the Force upon it, he found that soon enough it was bobbing above the lip of the box and coming down to land with a thud at his side. Slowly, he lowered his hands from above his body and sat himself up and got to his feet.

Bending his knees, he brought both hands around the sphere and tried to rise back upwards to stand. Unsuprisinly he found he could not and groaned with effort as he tried to heft the sphere. Aaron exhaled heavily and stood, satisfied. He could most certainly not lift the ball and this was important. Now again he extended a hand towards the sphere and felt the tug on the Force as he clustered his focus on the ball and caused it to rise a short distance before allowing it to drop again.

He returned to his position lying on the floor and once again extended his hands above his body.

[Aaron Belargic]

Now he lifted the ball with the Force and began the precarious task of bringing the sphere just above his hands. Once it was in place he carefully brought it down into his reach and locked his fingers around the surface. The tangible tingle of the Force around the orb made a little shiver go up his spine as he held the ball, not wanting to allow his hold of it with the Force go.

He knew, however, that to accomplish this task he had to, and thus let the noose of the Force slip away from the sphere. Almost immediately his arms began to buckle. His elbows burned and it felt like at any moment the sphere would come plummeting down onto his chest and break his ribs.

He had to put his doubts aside, however, or the exercise would not work. Aaron closed his eyes and began to imagine that through his arms their flowed a high powered current of water. This imagine of the Force acting as the current and sustaining the spheres position above his body was one that he thought worked well and quickly he began to feel his muscles relaxing and allowing the Forces to keep the orb in place.

When he had lifted the ball only using the Force it had seemed easy to do so. He was relying then entirely on his telekinetic abilities, but now he was allowing his own strength to flow through. Uncurling his fingertips from the ball, he simply allowed it to balance of its own accord on his palms, and opened his eyes to watch it above.

[Aaron Belargic]

When he felt confident enough Aaron gently eased the sphere over onto his left hand only. Again there was another push of pressure and his arm trembled somewhat as he tried to focus his mind onto not allowing his bones to shatter under the pressure. Luckily enough he was feeling secure about his abilities and believed he would fair well – although this was not to the point of being arrogant. He knew his limits and how far they went, and more importantly when and when not to push them.

Now was a time not to. He tilted his head to the side to look away from the orb as a way of trying to increase the amount of application needed. It seemed that when he was not directly watching the orb the direction of the Force wavered some, and so he tried to remedy this by seeing the globe in his minds eye.

The tendrils of the Force stretched out and created a sling of sorts around the sphere, lessening the pressure on his own body. This gave him strength enough to raise another identical orb. He brought the metal ball over his free hand and exhaled in anticipation as it came down onto his hand.

Panic came over Aaron as he felt his body shaking with the pressure and with a sharp intake of breath he pushed the spheres away. They both head the ground with a clatter, and Aarons arms fell to his sides as his chest heaved up and down. Perhaps he’d tried too much too fast.

[Aaron Belargic]

For a few minutes Aaron simply lay in silence, allowing his strength to return. He inhaled deeply and then exhaled, counting his breaths with his slowly decreasing heart rate. After a time he decided he was ready and slowly began the task of rebalancing the spheres on his hands, one by one. He allowed himself one sphere and then a second and began concentrating on allowing the two to remain held above his head.

Although his arms did ache it was not to the point that he desperately needed to allow the spheres to drop. It seemed that he was beginning to grasp just how to do the task without much difficulty. With this in mind, he sat up, having lowered the two spheres, and placed them back into the case which they’d come from.

Now he tried to lift the crate itself. Bending his knees, he braced himself and slipped his hands underneath the boxes edges. For a minute he just stood, preparing himself, before finally standing up with the thing in his arms. His legs quivered and he stumbled back a few paces, the prospect of being crushed under the weight of the trunk not so far away – but he managed to hold himself and not collapse.

[Aaron Belargic]

Now with the box held above his head, Aaron’s face was turning red. His eyes were watering and it was becoming difficult to keep his concentration, but he was determined not to give in. He had to manage this if he was going to progress on to much greater things.

Eyes becoming mere slits of white before closing entirely, he pushed his palms up and out as though he was going to throw the crate away, but instead caught it in suspension in the air. Telekinetic energy fizzled around it as he held it in place. Relief filled his whole being as he sighed and looked up, panting, into the bottom of the box. It was satisfying to see it floating there, in defiance of gravities principles.

When he felt as though he had held it in place long enough he gently brought it down back to his grip and gingerly back to the ground. Breathing out a chuckled sigh he fell down to sit on the box top, wiping his brow with his forearm.

[Aaron Belargic]

The next exercise was far less physically trying. On top of the box, once closed, he placed a candle and took a match out a small box to light it with. One the flickering flame was present he blew out the match and stood himself just by the box. Aaron made a fist with one hand and lined it up with the candles flame, above a foot away from the flame itself. As with the previous task he began to imagine the Force passing through his lines and being directed to where he was choosing it to go.

With a slight grunt he threw his fist forward … and the flame wiggled a little before defiantly returning to the wick. Aaron’s brow creased slightly and he paused to think on why it wasn’t happening. The idea was that by directing the Force through his body he would be able to project it, to create essentially an echo of his movements. Through this the Force would carry on the motion of his fist and strike the flame, putting it out.

A few more tries and it didn’t seem this was likely to happen.

[Aaron Belargic]

After a number of tries, during which Aaron was sure he burnt the hairs on the back of his knuckles, he finally managed to put the flame out – although he couldn’t be sure whether it was through the Force or through the air displacement of his fist rushing forward. The only way to know was to distance himself from the candle and try again.

He took a few large steps backwards and wound up another hit – twisting and pushing his fist outwards. As he had expected, nothing happened. Wit ha bit of a frown he tried as best he could to concentrate on the Force and closed his eyes.

Come on Aaron, you can do this.

The Padawan brought both his hands up to meet one another and inhaled a deep calming breath. Slowly, he lowered his hand down before gently punching at the air at it. For a few seconds he hesitated, not wanting to open his eyes, but when he did he was pleased – the candle flame was extinguished.