Eralest, His Masters Hammer (Jared)

[Gav Mortis]

"Wake up, Jared." Came Gav's gentle voice from the side of his apprentice's bed. They were in the infirmary within the walled city of Iziz and Jared was rousing from his unconciousness several hours after he had passed out in the wild lands outside the city's harbour. As Gav had expected, his apprentice looked healthy and strong once again despite the weariness in his eyes. He smiled soothingly.

"That's it, wake up. Come, apprentice, get up - your training is about to begin."

[Jared Mriad]

Jared slowly awaked and sat up, swinging his legs over the opposite side of the cot. He took a careful pat where his wound had been, but found it clean with a charred scar. Jared didn't say anything, rather, he stood and walked/limped over to his shirt and jacket. With each step a short flare of discomfort lept from the wound to his mind.

"How long have I been out, Master?" He asked over his shoulder as he pulled the shirt over his head. Dissapeared the criss-cross of scars along his back behind black fabric, "... forget the answer. It doesn't really matter, I'm living on borrowed time."

[Gav Mortis]

"What do you mean by that, apprentice?" Gav suddenly perked up, pulling his bright gaze of admiration away from the scar lashes on Jared's torso - he had sustained so much punishment and is unphased - what plans he had for his apprentice.

"What is this borrowed time?"

[Jared Mriad]

Jared turned a half-circle to look to Mortis.

"I'm suppose to be dead," He started, "Dead from posion from Hilare, but I survived," He neglected to mention the side effects of that posion, " Borrowed time, now that's a question in itself ain't it? Borrowed time, Mortis, is my life."

[Gav Mortis]

Instantaneously, Gav's demeanour changed and the back of his hand came across Jared's face and following through, his left hand siezed him by his jacket collar and pinned him against the wall. Gav was once again in his student's face.

"You will refer to me as master and only master, apprentice." He spat threateningly, nose to nose with the younger man, his eyes narrowed before releasing him. Then polarising his attitude, Gav began straightening out his apprentices creased jacket with a casual voice.

"Don't make that mistake again, apprentice, otherwise your borrowed time will be cut drastically short. Are you ready for your training?"

[Jared Mriad]

"Yes, Master." Jared responds, cooly forced out, while pushing off the wall.

[Gav Mortis]

"Good." Gav replied, straightening up and after giving his apprentice a long stare from head to foot and back again, he turned on his heel and headed for the door. "Then there's no time to waste."

Soon enough they were outside the infirmary and had stepped out into a miserable day; everywhere was coated in dull tones under a heavy, grey sky from which an endless shower of rain poured with relentless vigour. Pulling his hood up over his head, Gav moved on, they crossed an empty street and took temporary shelter under a hoverbus pickup station. An elderly man eyed them suspiciously from his seat and turning away from him, Gav addressed his pupil.

"Already apprentice, you have had your Rite of Passage and here you are--" He gestured to the buildings about them and then wincing, looked up at the cloudy sky. Then appologetically, he concluded: "Welcome to Iziz City. This place will be your new home and where most of your training will be conducted under my tutilage. At times, you will be taken under the wing of others learned in the dark arts and together we form an order of Darksiders known as the Kuklos Ataxia."

With a wry smile, Gav turned around and looked at the old man once again. He crouched down, rested his arm on the pensioner's leg and tilted his head.

"You sir - what is your name?" Gav asked as politely as possible to the clearly intimidated elder.

"Bor Yorthis."

"Very well, Mister Yorthis." Gav patted him on the arm then stood.

"Well I'm afraid to inform you that you've heard too much." He turned back to Jared and nodded. "Kill him."

[Jared Mriad]

Jared cuffed Yorthis with a swift backhand, then began to carve his face in with blows of the right fist while his left held him by the throat. The first three broke the old man’s jaw, the forth his nose, the fifth further caved in the center of his face, all the while not loosing a breath, not blinking an eye. Around the seventh strike; Jared’s fist was nothing more than a red blur. Bone brittle, flesh, meat, and the scream of Yorthis as he was beaten danced in the air. Yorthis died. Jared beat.

[Gav Mortis]

There was a shimmer in Gav's eyes as he watched Jared systematically and brutally pummel the old man to death, he was proud for there were few apprentice's these days who would carry out such a task with out question or hesitation. The fog was lifting and it became clear to the Sith that Jared was not only a protege after his own heart but his very tool of destruction. Then his hand rested on Jared's shoulder.

"Stop." He ordered quietly.

[Jared Mriad]

Jared drew back to strike, then lowered his fist. Slowly, his left pryed it's fingers from the dead man's neck with low pops and cracks of the joints. Not only was his fist red, his face had been splotched with little splatters of the color, his jacket with wet beads of blacker-than-black.

[Gav Mortis]

"Very good." Gav said almost breathlessly, still staring at the blooded and disfigured face of the elderly man now slumped lifelessly on the floor. They would have to make a move soon enough otherwise they would be seen with the corpse and reluctant to look away from the corpse but pleased to cast his gaze upon the blood-spattered face of his apprentice, Gav grinned and took his hand from Jared's shoulder.

"Very good!" He laughed with mixed amusement and satisfaction; it felt exhilerating to have such an obedient monster at his disposal. Then he cupped Jared's face in his hands and moved in close, staring him in those intense eyes. "You are brutal and strong, apprentice. You are a killer; never change and make me proud. Let's go."

[Jared Mriad]

Jared felt like a dog that actually got the stick instead of some rock. He wiped away the remaining gore and nodded once, he had nothing to say. Well, nothing now.

[Gav Mortis]

Away from the scene of the crime they walked, through soaked streets and narrow alleys until they came to a long road flanked on either side by endless wasteland and derelict buildings. Then Gav diverged from the road and took his apprentice across a battle scarred field, they headed toward a snaking, smouldering trail of smoke which billowed into the miserable sky and despite the thick, unnaturally grey mud under their boots, onward they trudged.

"Up ahead is a large ore refinery. It employs one-hundred and twelve men and is responsible for all that thick pollutant which plunders the sky. I'm not an environmentalist but I want to shut the place down for a day and I need your help. Once you're inside, I want you to as quickly and as systematically as possible, do what you do best; cause havoc and kill; and I'll shut off security and the alarms. Most will flee for their lives and good for them because no-one should get in the way of a master training his pupil."

They arrived at a large, electrified fence which emmited a threatening hum and on the other side they could see that thanks to the weather, there was no-one outside and the grounds had little but some speeders and supply crates. Even at this distance the noise from the bustling refinery was loud, there was clanging, hissing, shouting and the groaning of heavy machinery. Gav gave his apprentice a mischievous look then leapt up and over the fence.

"I'll see you inside." And with that, he darted off.

[Jared Mriad]

Jared smirked and watched Mortis scanter off into the facility then went to examining the fence. High voltage, Chain-linked, blah, blah… No sensor. Well, shucks. He leapt over the fence, drawing one of his two sabers and idly twirling it in his hand as he strolled toward the main complex. His first target was a vacant speeder truck, which he boosted without much of a problem. Jared drove it back toward the fence, before reaching the fence; he turned the wheel and directed the truck back towards the complex.

He floored the gas, a twisted little grin on his face as the speeder lurched with an engine-burning whine and gained speed toward the large warehouse doors. Well, too bad if Mortis didn’t have the alarms down, because Jared’s hell bent on making his own door and he wasn’t going to be waiting around buddy-two-shoes. Some idle workers, most likely on their lunch break, shouted for the truck to stop, slow down, and what the <smallfont color={hovercolor}>-Censored-</smallfont> are you doing.

Jared slipped out of the cab with a little Force work, keeping him from rolling over and over as one usually did when they leapt from a moving vehicle, and landed in a smartass trot. The vehicle plowed through the doors, the workers leapt out of the way, and Jared strolled in casually.

[Gav Mortis]

Gav pressed a hand up against the blue-surfaced scanner embedded in the wall, the panel illuminated as it scanned the finger prints and skin contours and then a green light turned on above the control centre door and it slid open. Gav pulled the hand away from the scanner, it's surface was blood-stained now and he discarded the severed appenix carelessly; it wasn't like the security guard would be needing it anymore.

As the Sith stepped inside, sirens began wailing throughout the complex at ear-piercing volume; it looked like Jared had made his entrance; and quickly Gav took out his lightsaber and ran the blade through the chair at a computer terminal and resultantly, the chest of the man sat in it. Shoving the corpse aside, he fumbled about with the terminal until the alarms were deactivated, next went the security sensors and finally door locks.

Perhaps he should have gave it more thought because the moment the door locks were down in barged three heavily armed men and instantly opened fire.

[Jared Mriad]

Jared confronted two armed workers off the bat.

His saber ignited with a flourish lopping off the closest worker's arm. Jared caught the smoking stump and pulled the worker into a behind-the-back armlock where then Jared sunk his teeth into the screaming worker's throat. He jerked and ripped out a mouthful.

Blood dribbled down his chin, soaking the shirt he wore. Blood sprayed from the open wound. Jared sent a grin at the other worker who ran off screaming. Boy, that was the greatest stuff. He reached over and snagged the blaster from the spazming, bleeding worker, hefted the weapon twice, then sent it spinning torward the fleeing worker. Like a bladed boomberang, it struck him in the back of the head and send him to the floor.

Score!

The buzzer had died off a minute ago, so Mortis did his job.

"Well, folks. Let's play."

He headed deeper into the loud facility, pausing here and there to look at some machinery or kick a brace. Several more workers crossed his path at one point to be slaughtered by a quick finesse of the lightsaber. This was soon getting boring, so Jared sliced though one of the air compressors' braces and sent the tank falling to the floor below. Next in his jippy little game, he used a nearby hover-fork-lift, why in the hell did a Ore Refinery have one of these next to the compressors?, to rotated it torward a clear wall. He hopped off and steadied his lightsaber over the cap.

'hmmmhmhmmhMHM-Fswing-FFFFFFF-FOOM' the air compressor said as it jetted across the floor and through the wall! That was sorta alright, he had expected more from it. But... eh. Works.

[Gav Mortis]

The trio of armed men were dead and Gav went unscathed into the hub of the factory where there was currently an almighty ruckus and against the flow of terrified employees scampering for their lives, Gav cheerfully headed in the direction he knew he would find his apprentice. And the sight of a wall being torn down by a flying air compressor marked that he had unsuprisingly discovered Jared's whereabouts.

"It certainly looks like you've been having fun." He called out as he stepped into the next room through the hole in the wall, assessing the damage around him. Gav smiled at the sight of his student's blooded face and clothing, and with a chuckle: "I take that back - it looks like you've been having a ball!"

"The complex is emptying out now, there should be no need to worry about anyone else sticking their noses into business that isn't their own. And as such, playtime is over."

Taking a handful of Jared's shirt, Gav pulled, tearing a large hole in his apprentice's clothing and exposing the wound where he had once impaled a dagger no longer than a day ago. He crouched and turned his apprentice sideways so he could take a closer look, the tissue was still sensitive and the wound crudely sealed by stitching and bacta treatment. After a moment of prodding and inspecting the wound, Gav stood.

"There's going to be a scar there once it's healed fully but I doubt that will be a bother to someone with as much scarring as yourself.; Too many scars in my opinion so I think it's about time we did something about it, remove your shirt and tell me how you've obtained the majority of your scars."

[Jared Mriad]

Jared stripped his shirt. His chest was criss-crossed with more smaller scars than bigger ones and with one ugly twisted scar that could resemble a dragon, curling from his right chest/shoulder to his collar. , usually set in groups of three or four. The larger, more burn-scar than other, cross his back.

"Fights, wrecks, explosions, runnin' from monsters, sabers, a little demon named Fallon," He replied, "And Hilare." He spat off to the side at that name, bloody witch tried many times to kill him.

[Gav Mortis]

"An impressive collection to say the least." Gav noted, his forefinger and thumb pressed against his chin thoughtfully as he inspected Jared's scars. The wheels in his head turned at his apprentice's loathing for his former master, his hatred for Hilare could prove to be a powerful source of motivation in Jared's training. Slowly, Gav paced around his young protege.

"I'd say don't worry about your former master but right now, I think the memory of her will work to our advantage. Throughout the course of your training, apprentice, I wont to make you a strong, fast and impenetrable warrior."

From behind, Gav landed a solid kidney shot and stepped back while Jared recovered from the unexpected attack, Gav smiled as his apprentice's furious glare turned to meet him and clearly, he was ready for anything his master would throw at him. Holding an open hand in defense and apology, Gav contiunued circling but this time, Jared turned on the spot with him.

"That hurt no doubt, now were I to ask you to prepare for such a blow you could and it would hurt considerably less due to muscle tension and the like. I can, to an extent, use the Force as an extra layer of protection; my body feels less pain from strikes and it injures with less severity. This is a privilage enjoyed by most who have studied the Force for as long as I and it is an involuntary benefit for the best part; we grow physically stronger, faster and resistant to pain and fatigue. This is why Force Users can accomplish such great physical feats unheard of by regular men and women."

Raising his fists defensively, Gav closed in on his apprentice suddenly and said simply: "Box with me for a moment."

He threw a punch, a left jab aimed for Jared's jaw.

[Jared Mriad]

Jared fell into a crouch, leaning heavy to his left and using his right for a snap-punch to Mortis's gut, meaning to follow through with a uppercut with his right...

[Gav Mortis]

Gav pivoted until Jared's snap-punch glanced past him but in doing so had left himself open and unsuspecting of his apprentice's next attack; he wouldn't dodge in time; so his hand opened and caught the uppercutting fist just before it made contact with his chin. There was a moments struggle against Jared's strength and Gav grinned.

"Very good."

Gav then siezed Jared by the wrist and lifted him up so that his feet left the ground and while he held his apprentice in the air, Gav continued with his lesson.

"So we can grant our muscles strength through the more potent of our emotions and it is done in three simple steps; sense the Force around you, use your anger or hatred to fuel your control of the energy field and finally, direct all that power to the muscles you wish to improve; by letting the Force flow into you and build up in any given area your muscles will take on superhuman properties."

Teasingly, Gav moved his apprentice from side to side while he was still in the air, he smiled and retracted his free hand and prepared his apprentice for an attack.

"Take the hit, apprentice, do as I have instructed and the blow you endure will be little more than a mere tap but if you fail in doing this, your training today will come to an abrupt end and we'll be visiting the hospital again. Now!"

His fist open and Gav sent his open palm out for Jared's unprotected chest, if his apprentice failed, then the Force enhanced blow would crack a rib or two.

[Jared Mriad]

Jared, in the window of opportunity given to he, remembered the last episode that contracted so much rage in his mind: the first time that Cherice had brought him completely to beck and call, woof and whine. Fallon's little jokes, the devil of a lizard, too came to breech the surface. He brought that rage to the surface to the brimming magma of his already gathered hatered.

He focused it down into his chest, and near instant of Gav's impact the muscles contracted with human will and the aid of the Force. The strike knocked the breath momentarily from his chest, but with true teachings from Darth Snack, Jared brough up his knees and struck out with an kick-strike to Mortis's chest...

[Gav Mortis]

After expecting his palm strike to send his apprentice reeling, Jared's attack took Gav by suprise and the impact forced to him to release his hold on him. A thud and Gav was on the floor, he looked up at Jared with mixed feelings of pride and resentment; his apprentice was a fast learner; and after a cough, he smiled.

"Impressive counter attack, apprentice." Gav climbed to his feet and dusted off his hands and clothes. "So it seems you've taken to my instructions with some speed and without further a do let's put your training into action. We'll spar; no holds barred; and along the way I'll help you do similar things to improve your strength, speed and agility."

In a steady walk, Gav approached his apprentice, a steel bar flew into his hand and he gripped it with both hands. "By the time this is through, I want to see you punch through walls. It's time for a beating."

Bringing his weapon up, Gav narrowed his eyes and swung, aiming low for Jared's waist.

[Jared Mriad]

Jared slid back quickly, leaving a unwilled margin where the pipe barely touched his stomach yet ripped a hole in his shirt. Already abit miffed from being shooken around, Jared enhanced his speed while stepping into the pipe's line of attack and struck with a heavy right punch for Mortis's face.

[Gav Mortis]

Gav brought his makeshift weapon around and looped it under Jared's wrist and lifted, his blow was diverted and barely missed Gav's nose; so that was enhanced speed; clealy Jared was more skilled than he has been letting on. Gav liked that in an apprentice, deception, a powerful gift.

"Faster."

Gav landed a snap-kick to his apprentices knee.

"Stronger."

And pushed his fist away with the pipe. And picoted.

"Tougher."

Aimed a backfist for Jared's chin.

[Jared Mriad]

Jared focused that little "trick" Gav told him on his whole face, the impact feeling nothing like it usually did, but rather felt somewhat short of a slap. He reeled back in feign, rubbing his jaw and shooting one of those I hate you looks at Mortis.

"Nufice sfot."

[Gav Mortis]

"Is that it?" Gav sneered, he raised his weapon. "Fight me, apprentice, or are you afraid of another scratch?"

[Jared Mriad]

Jared straightened up and curled his fists. His eyes scanned the debris for a weapon of his own. Ironically, a quarter-staff length of steel pipe lay near the destroyed wall, Jared focused and called it to his hand, twirling it experimentally then holding it by the middle and end, the point at Mortis.

"I'll fight'yah. But I am not going to take the full frontal assault at first, Master," he replied.

"Come at me."

[Gav Mortis]

"For someone with such a firey temper, you certainly keep you cool in combat. Any other hot-headed apprentice would've ran at me but not you." Gav smiled, gripping the pipe tighter. "Not my Eralest."

Suddenly, several large objects hurled themselves at Jared; debris, a work tool, a lunchbox and a dismembered limb; all from different angles. It was time for some speed and Gav had already moved in to strike while concentrating on a second barrage of inanimate objects which took flight. The pipe extended, he lunged at his apprentice, hoping to jab at his abdomen.

[Jared Mriad]

Jared, himself, saw most of it slow down. He brought up the staff's end and parried away the closest of the four flying objecrs, ducked low under the sweep of another, and even lower at the debris' attempt. He came up with the staff leveled horizonal and spun off Mortis's thrust, it caught his side like the first time. If timed right, one of the staff's ends would impact with the upper half of Gav's torso...

[Gav Mortis]

After having his thrust diverted, Gav's entire right side was exposed and he had been turned away from his opponent, so in a last attempt to defend his upper torse, he brought the pipeover his shoulder and held it parellel to his back. The pipes collided with a clang and Gav didn't hesitated; bowing low and pulling down he turned his pipe into a makeshift lever which propelled the end of the pipe in contact over his head and thus forced Jared to turn with it.

Gav turned, anticipating the other half of the quarterstaff which was bound to follow through for a counter stike, with a flourish, he spun his pipe and intercepted his apprentices weapon.

"Now you're open for attack!" Gav jeered victoriously and changing his centre of gravity, leaned back, aiming a sidekick for Jared's jaw.

[Jared Mriad]

The kick impacted solidly and Jared fell to the floor. His quarterstaff clattered nearby.

He lay still, appearing to be K.O'ed.

Wasn't even close, yet.

[Gav Mortis]

"Get up, apprentice!" Gav snapped impatiently. Striding over to his fallen pupil, he called the quarterstaff pipe to his hand and used it to tap the floor with impatience.

"Surely you can do better!"

[Jared Mriad]

Jared's eyes peel open.

"I'm starting to dislike you," He spoke, kipping up to a crouch and then to stand. Almost fluidly, as his shoulders came up, he slid into a spinning back kick: he slid his right leg back, turned counter-clockwise enough to see his target over his shoulder , he chambered up his right leg up and extended it as he spun, sort've a modified high roundhouse. The aim was for Gav's head.

[Gav Mortis]

The best Gav could do to block the oncoming attack was raise the longer pipe and hold it firm in position until his apprentice connected with his roundhouse kick. There was a cracking sound and Gav suddenly felt Jared's boot against his jaw; he was sent reeling from the blow, almost fallen but fought to maintain a steady footing; in his hands were two pieces of metal from the now broken pipe. Gav assessed the damage not only to the pipe but to his face; a thin ribbon of blood trickled from the corner of his mouth.

"I am impressed." He confessed, rubbing his jaw after casting aside the remains of Jared's discarded weapon. "That was a kick and a half, apprentice. Now--"

Gav's own weapon leapt into his grasp once again and he grinned at Jared, thoughts of mischief danced in his eyes. He patted one end of the hefty pipe in his open palm.

"By the same wreckoning, now that you can break metal pipes with your feet, what do you think would break first were I to hit you with this; the pipe or your back?"

[Jared Mriad]

Jared fell back into a defensive stance, "Depends on how hard yer plannin' to hit me," He confessed, but he pretty much knew the answer to that statement: "But the twist is, I'm not going to let you just hit me , Master, like some dog in a pen. You'll find a fight in this mutt." He slid his left foot forward, matched it's distance forward with his left palm, open with the fingers curled partially, and his right pulled back into a fist.

[Gav Mortis]

"Oh, I'll be hitting you quite hard, apprentice." Gav replied brightly, gazing down at the pipe with lust in his eyes. He grinned sadistically. "Quite hard."

Not wasting another moment, Gav launched into an all out attack on Jared, putting his speed and agility to good use; first he ran then sommersaulted over his student hoping to bring the pipe across the back of his neck.

[Jared Mriad]

Jared dropped into a low crouch and breifly waited for the pipe to sing overhead before he angled his right elbow and drove up into Gav's stomach/midsectional area, he followed through with a sweep and launched into a hailstorm of strikes with his fists once righted - unaimed strikes.

[Gav Mortis]

Unexpected was Jared's counter attack that it stopped Gav from following through with the pipe swing and thus his attack was sabotaged. Upon landing, he found his feet sweeped from under him; Jared was getting faster; and he fell back. His fall was cut short as he leaned back on the pipe and use it as a support while he kicked aside his apprentice's punches and aimed his foot for Jared's chin.

OOC: Sorry about the delay.

[Jared Mriad]

The foot contacted with Jared's chin and caused his head to snap back violently. His body was in motion for a follow-through attack but with the impact, his upper half was jolted back and he had to force his lower half to catch up. Jared stumbled away and righted himself, spitting out blood from where he bit his own lip.

He brought up his fists again, waiting a offensive.

OOC: No prob. Sorry for the grammer/spelling crap, I don't have my usual word processer with me.

[Gav Mortis]

OOC: Seems alright to me.


Pleased with his saving throw, as it were, Gav was encouraged to engage his apprentice with greater aggression; both hands wrapped tight around the hefty pipe with which he aimed a swing for Jared's left side. He doubted the kidney shot would find it's mark but anticipating a parry of some sort, Gav's follow-up manouver would be to rotate the pipe in his hands and bring it down upon his opponent's head.

[Jared Mriad]

Jared foresaw the action briefly through the force before it actually came to physical motion. He focused his rage to the side that was soon to receive an impact, when the pipe struck his exposed side, Jared added the flash of crippling pain to his fire and caught Gav's wrist between the crook of his (Jareds) elbow and his ribs.

Silvery insanity boiled in Jared eyes as he drew back his free fist for a shot right to Mortis's neck.

[Gav Mortis]

In a brief moment of panic, Gav acted on instinct and used the Force to hurl his apprentice away from him thus breaking the deadlock and avoiding a potentially lethal blow to the neck. He was impressed at how fast his apprentice had grown and given the look in his eyes, the Sith figured there would have been enough strength behind that punch to take his master's head clean off his shoulders. A shiver of electricity ran down Gav's spine and he smiled.

"Impressive, apprentice, but you're going to have to do better than that still. There are going to be times when your opponent can do like I just did and knock you about just by thinking about it, you need to be faster than the speed of thought."

Again Jared was hurled through the air, this time he soared overhead and landed somewhere behind his master, who then turned, eyes closed and open hand outstretched.

"Bring it on, Eralest."

[Jared Mriad]

Jared didn't expect the mental throw, and was thustly caught unprepared for the impact on both occassions. With scattered debris strewn about with the impact, Jared felt pretty damn irriated. He clutched a short length of steel pole and got up to his feet with his back facing to Mortis.

He gripped the pipe tightly, then spun on his heel and chucked the pipe boomerang-style for Mortis. In the toss, he forced a little of his own strength and thrust a little of mental work to power it into a fast and deadly projectile.

[Gav Mortis]

And without even having to raise a finger, Gav's masterful telekinesis sent the pipe off on a tangent where it clanged against a humming generator. He smiled.

"You are supposed to be developing your physical attributes; strength and speed are what you should be working on; not your throwing skills. Come at me, Eralest, and I will use the Force to stop you and you must overcome all I send your way, use your brute strength and speed, nothing more. Let the power of the Darkside feed your body strength. Go!"

[Jared Mriad]

Jared sqinted his eyes with irritation, his hands closing to fists as he poured himself into a bezerker rage. Everything, and I mean everything, that he had ever felt anger for from the last day he could remember in the past. The anger and fustration of finding himself alone on a crewless cruiser, his first session with Snack and those afterwards, his confrontations with Xazor and the time where she had saved his life from that collasping temple.

He started torward Mortis with a heavy, but slow, advance, picking up his speed with every foot-fall until he broke out in a flat-out charge. By God, he'd take that man's head off!

[Gav Mortis]

And Gav threw his apprentice back through the air and into the wall behind him, putting even greater distance between he and his protege. Again, he smiled.

"That was a disgraceful effort, apprentice. What is the point of having all that strength and anger if you can't get to your opponent to unleash it. Let me spell it out; you have to be so fast that you are standing in front of me before I can even think about halting your advance. Now, fast."

A bucket full of scrap metal was suddenly sent hurtling for Jared.

[Jared Mriad]

Jared bounced off the wall and landed squarely on his feet and knees bent slightly. He quickly erected as the box of scrap met it's apex and came sailing down torward him, in retaliation, he shot out an arm and sent the box off it's course to crash somewhere to the right. He started off again, going much quicker than before as he poured his concentration into speed.

He saw his world start to blur as the world smeared together in a tunnel with Mortis standing on the opposite end with that smile. As that image wisked into his mind, Jared found himself mere feet away from Mortis, then less, then less, barely enough time to bring his fist up for a gut-shot..

[Gav Mortis]

Gav's arm swept downwards and diverted Jared's assaulting fist and then the Force kicked in and his apprentice was thrown backwards once more. Gav smiled, clearly amused at the thought of how infuriating the whole ordeal must be for his pupil.

"You're faster than that, apprentice. Now let me see that speed."

[Jared Mriad]

"GRRRAH!" Jared roared, getting to his feet and launching forward again in pure fury. He gained some speed with each furious heartbeat and exhale of air spelt his intent, he could feel his blood boiling from it as well. Instead of a blunt rush in, Jared jumped with a blindingly fast sizzor-kick when he was in range of doing so.

[Gav Mortis]

Gav sidestepped the manouver and forcefully batted his apprentice to the ground with his clenched fists. Not wasting a second, the now irritated Sith landed a firm boot into Jared's chest, Gav winced; his apprentice's chest felt like a brick wall against his foot. Jared was increasing in strength and his speed was becoming blinding but there was one important flaw.

"Your technique is dreadful, apprentice, sloppy and erratic. What makes you think that you will land successfully such an avoidable manouver upon a Sith Master who is stood, at full strength, anticipating your attack? Dare you underestimate me or are you too preoccupied with flashy moves to appreciate your master's instructions?"

Still on the floor, Jared, was dragged slowly across to the far end of the room once more by an invisible force.

"When you come at me, move like the wind; swift and agile; when you reach me, weaken my defenses using multiple attacks at great speed and finally, when my guard is down; land one single blow with all the power you can muster. If you can achieve that, Eralest, your training will be over for today."

Now, do it. Strike your master."

[Jared Mriad]

Jared got to his feet silently, unmistakenable anger coursing through his very blood. All those years without proper guidance had tainted his true nature and mindset, and Jared was now begining to realise that. He stood there a minute, staring down the corridor at Mortis. Jared was too slow, so he would make himself faster, he was too blind, he would make himself see!

He saw replays of the last, pathetic, strategic moves he had made and how they failed horribly. Then he saw new ones, which would fail, then those in which Mortis desired: Those few that would succeed. None of this came through the Force, all of it was in the complex, yet battered, mind.

Jared dropped his gaze to the floor, then suddenly took off in another speedy run. As he drew nearer and nearer, he started to erratically make short zig-zags and wavering his path, altering his stance and balance. Upon Mortis in heartbeats, Jared first started with several hard forward strikes for Mortis's chest - of course, those were deflected. He tried for a backhand strike, following through with a forwards snap-kick, and ending with a low sweep - if Mortis fell, Jared would strike with a powered heel-drop, if not, he planned to attack Mortis's abdoment with knife-strikes (hand turned like a knife.)

[Gav Mortis]

A raised forearm intercepted Jared's backhand, the other hand swept the snap-kick aside, a gentle hop and the low sweep was avoided easily enough. Jared was moving increadibly fast and it was only through using his heightened reflexes and senses that the Sith was able to block the oncoming barrage of knife strikes to his abdomen. Jared's onslaught was consistent and unrelenting, Gav knew he wouldn't be able to keep up with this sort of fight for long but he had to try; lest his apprentice would never realise his true potential. He cursed the sweat beads trickling down his brow.

"Is that it? Pathetic! You are a disgrace to the name Warrior. Strike hard, Eralest. Stike true!"

[Jared Mriad]

Jared continued his knife-strikes, curling his fists at one withdrawl. He had to punch through that defence, for this assault wouldn't last. He knew it, and knew it true. He didn't know if it was his body, or his mind, but one of the two was wearing thin. His right fist curled first, then drove hard and fast in a right hook.