Further Fog

[Je'gan Olra'en]

A single diffuse shaft of Core Worlds starlight illuminated a circle in the middle of the otherwise pitch-black room. Conical, with reading nooks around the wall, the room had seen a great deal during Je'gan Olra'en's long career, both good and bad. At the cone's apex was a tiny window, whose purpose (aside from the obvious one of simply being a place to read in peace) he had finally discerned. This room was for controlling the weather; the conical shape to help gather and direct the necessary energies, and the little skylight to see the effects.

That wasn't what he was here for, of course. He was very realistic about his powers, especially when it came to energy manipulation or telekinesis, and though oddly enough he seemed to have a minor talent in elemental powers, it wasn't complex or powerful enough to affect anything like the weather.

He was here simply to practice his newfound abilities with the manipulation of the air. What that might lead to in the future - how far it might go - he didn't know. For the moment, all he wanted to do was refine this newfound skill.

Taking a seat in one of the padded reading nooks, the only one not heaped with books left by other students, he reached out to the Force and began to tug on the air in the room. As Malice had taught him, so he did: rather than forcibly sieze control of the particles in the air, he turned their paths into simple curves and began to unify them a few at a time. Instead of wasting energy on those travelling in the opposite direction, he focused his efforts on the ones that could be most easily bent to his will, thus freeing up concentration for more particles.

He had kept his eyes open; now he realized that he was paying no attention to what he could see. Chagrined, he let his consciousness settle on two different viewpoints, a very similar mindset to multiple-subject mind control. After so much experience with that, this was relatively easy. He stood and began to walk around. The little currents of air continued to form and dissipate, causing his hair and robes to began to sway. Pulling his lightsabers from his belt, he began to run through a random set of moves while doing his best to both keep those currents going and let himself have enough concentration on the here-and-now to move - and fight - more or less properly. It succeeded, as witnessed by the continued tugging on his unkempt hair, but only to an extent. Then again, he hadn't expected anything else.

Magor and Azubah returned to his belt, and he took his seat again. The padding dimpled under him as he leaned forward, elbows on knees, and began to command the air in earnest. The puffs became blasts, invisible to the naked eye but discernable in the eye of the Force.

He stacked up a trio of books, two parallel and one across the top, then directed a blast of wind against it from the easiest angle. It collapsed; the top book flew several feet before touching down. Pleased, he restacked the same books and blasted the makeshift 'building' from another angle. The wind hit the spines of both supports and shoved the assembly a few inches across the floor.

He redoubled his efforts and shoved the three books until they collapsed. Rather than stand to reassemble them, he used telekinesis and continued right on with the wind, this time directing wind against the other edges of the books. A light breeze wafted over him as the books began to skid forward across the smooth stone, passing through the circle of starlight. He thought it was taking less energy than telekinesis. Maybe it was just how his mind worked when it connected to the Force. Straight TK, he couldn't do; basic elementalism, he could. Odd.

The thought was banished as he continued to direct the air into increasingly larger gusts. Forcefully, he clamped down on his elation, drawing instead on anger. His hold on the Dark Side increased. The next gust rocked him on his feet.

Grinning, he sat down in the middle of the starlight. The particles began to speed up as he injected energy into them. This was something he'd puzzled out for himself, in his early days as a Knight, and he had practiced it as faithfully as anything. The air began to warm perceptibly over a period of several minutes, using up only moderate amounts of Je'gan's energy in the process. He knew he should be drawing on the Force for energy, but the predisposition to fend for himself had caused his connection to the Force to take that path. It was something he could probably change if he tried. For now, though, he was satisfied with how he was in that regard.

He returned to the manipulation of the warmer air, which was now cooling as the room exchanged breath with the sky through the open window. For the first time he noticed that he was actually getting cold. Wrapping his cloak tighter around his body, he put his hood up and continued to command air currents. This was definitely easier than TK. Interesting.

He chose to unleash a blast stronger than anything he had tried so far, as strong as a Knight-level Force Push. Telekinesis of that magnitude was only available to him under duress, and drained him extensively. By his estimation, this should still drain him noticeably, but he was confident enough in the way his brain managed elementalism that he didn't think duress would be required.

The air seemed to hold its breath for a long moment. Je'gan took a step and made a punching motion. All at once, wind blasted the far wall. A set of carefully piled books flew back and hit the wall hard enough to send a series of loud booms through the confines of the room, just as if they had been hit by a Knight-level Force Push.

His breathing and circulation had increased; willing them to slow, he began to evaluate the other effects of that much telekinesis. There had been a sharp drain in power, but not as much as he had expected. Not nearly as much...and suddenly Je'gan rose into the air, turning a backflip before landing. He punched the air wordlessly.

Although it had still taxed him of more than telekinesis would tax another Knight, there went his greatest weakness.

[Je'gan Olra'en]

One day he ventured into Coronet on a speeder bike, coming in at moderate speed. Perhaps because of a lack of necessity, his danger-sense had been slacking off. Today, he'd vowed, he would get it back to the way it had been a month ago, or die trying.

That was why, as he drove, he was wearing a blindfold. Boyish, almost silly, but it suited his purposes.

He could have locked onto the minds all around him and gotten an idea of their intentions, even their thoughts - more than good enough to control the bike by in traffic. That, however, was too easy, besides which he didn't need more practice at mentalics. What he needed was a thorough restoration of his danger-sense.

He argued with himself briefly, reacting on instinct during that short time and narrowly avoiding a collision. Mentalics was just as important as his danger-sense, after all. Very well, he told himself. He would use his danger-sense alone on the way in, and mentalics alone on the way out.

Subsuming himself in the Force, he began listening for the tiny cues of danger and safety that the Force had granted him long ago. For now, it seemed as if he was entirely safe. But only, he realized, for the next seven seconds. Then a light changed colour, and he pulled to a neat stop before he could plow into the speeder in front of him. His braking had been perfect: the speeder behind him hadn't had a chance to hit him.

The real problem, it seemed, was when to tell that the light had changed back. It only took him a moment to think of a solution, even though he wasn't sure it would work now that his danger-sense had atrophied. He stretched out and, without surprise, felt the danger inherent in the intersection. Should he go now, he would probably die - and that was, after all, dangerous. That, he could and did feel. When that danger-nexus ceased to exist, he waited a requisite moment, judging the danger-nexii all around, and stepped on the accelerator at the perfect time. Through the intersection he blazed, and into a denser part of the city, moderating his speed to match the traffic, and generally getting the hang of piloting blind all over again. Intersections and turns didn't faze him. Soon enough, the nexii became less and less frequent, and then he was out of the city and into the plains.

He took a moment to switch mental tracks, and then turned around and gunned the accelerator. Impressive as his danger-sense was, it was nothing to his expertise in the mind. Finding and reading minds was simplicity itself. He drew the Force into an aura around him, easily twenty metres in all directions, and instilled in that aura a broadband, low-level mindtap. In a very real sense, he became the drivers all around him, felt when they chose to turn, speed up or slow down, and assembled it all into a sort of instinct-driven map. His danger-sense was still active - it could never be entirely turned off - but it didn't take his attention away from the map, merely added to it. Here and there, someone would slow down to avoid something dangerous, and that would show up on the 'map' in Je'gan's head.

Almost too soon, he was out of the city and back onto the plains. A quick telekinetic grip tore off the blindfold; squinting against the brightness, Je'gan headed for the imposing silhouette of the Palace. That had gone very well indeed.

[Je'gan Olra'en]

"Cubeville. How mundane."

He was sitting in a lawn chair on top of the tallest private building in Coronet, the wind whipping his hair out around his head. His eyes were closed, and it was possible that he didn't realize that he'd spoken.

In a setting much like this one, he'd taught himself multiple-subject mind control, starting with half-a-dozen weak-minded employees of some company or other and working up from there over the course of one marvelous afternoon. Today, he was going to do something he hadn't done in ages. He'd only attempted it once or twice, and barely remembered how to do it.

But he had nothing better to do.

The building below him was completely owned by Fanyar Corp., an engineering firm with contracts throughout three sectors. He'd already spent an hour or so sifting through the minds of the employees, just enough to get an idea of what their work was and who they worked with most closely.

There, for example, was Hij in one cubicle, Poll in an adjacent one and Yermt a few floors down. They were working on a project together - only a little prompting had made them all choose to work on it simultaneously - and now Je'gan could begin.

He reached into their minds, not too deep because that probably wasn't necessary, and grabbed them by their subconscious. Here he was stymied: he knew he had to connect their subconscious somehow, but...how? He couldn't quite remember. There were a couple of possibilities: stretch their subconscious minds and intertwine them, or use something - his own mind, for example - as a bridge. Just based on instinct, he selected the second: the first seemed a bit too haphazard, and might prove permanent if done wrong. Besides, it fit better with what he knew of enhancing coordination.

As he extended portions of his own mind towards theirs, he was searching for any hint of memory. Finally, though, he was forced to conclude that there was none. Either his memory had tricked him - not impossible, given the state of his mind over the last year or so - or this wasn't the way he'd done it.

He made contact with the three minds and allowed their subconscious thoughts to flow through a part of his own mind. Ever mindful of weakness of any sort, he dimpled his mental shields inwards, to put the intersection and merging of the three men's thoughts outside his defences. It might give him less fine control, but it would keep the mental link from becoming a back door that other skilled mentalists could exploit with relative ease.

Their thoughts were melding properly, or at least their subconscious ones. That should increase efficiency; he'd have to take a closer look later. For now, he concentrated on infusing the smooth mixture of thought with a desire to make a difference and an increased sense of loyalty to company, homeworld and fellow workers. This, at least, felt familiar.

That had been easy, in its own way. Very little energy had been used up. Je'gan felt more than confident about extending tendrils from the walled-off area of his mind towards another dozen workers, all nearby. His infusion of will faltered half-way through, though, and confusion rippled around the melded subconscious that he was controlling - at least in theory. Working as fast as possible, he brought the full dozen in and then a dozen more to stabilize the blend of confusion and order. When the bridge was complete, he began again to instill loyalty and motivation into the juncture through which their thoughts were passing, frantic and spastic. It took a lot - enough to make a dent on his energy reserves - but it succeeded.

His next, obvious test was endurance. Privately, he made a wager with himself: he could hold this for two hours.

So he sat there in his chair, fists clenched at the end of the armrests, maintaining the coordination with singleminded determination as was his wont. Anything he did, he did determinedly. It took a lot to startle him or make him hesitant. One of his greatest assets, which was saying something when one considered just how many talents he had.

For example (he began to think): Danger-sense. Detailed enough to pick up plots or attempts at Farseeing, or track an invisible and Force-masked person or object so long as he, she or it was in any way dangerous to him. Telepathy, now enhanced immeasurably - to Mastery. Pain feed: the ability to get power from his own anguish. Its utility trickled off when life processes began to shut down, but it was still an incredible gift. Fencing. He was fast and precise, and his instincts never failed him. He'd been a Form Two Master since his earliest days as a Knight.

And of course...ingenuity. More than any other Sith he'd ever met, Je'gan was a genius at putting something together on the spot - using an old technique in a new way, or blending techniques.

He pulled himself out of his welter of self-congratulation to check on the continued viability of the 'battle' coordination. Much to his surprise, it had stayed, with only minimum subconscious effort. He checked his chrono; almost ten minutes had elapsed since the coordination link had been finalized. Absently, he picked up the drink beside his chair and took a sip, inhaling the wind's stench. Cities always stunk to him; perhaps it was the morass of annoying and disgusting minds that always seemed to lurk about. He couldn't help but feel them.

After another twenty minutes, he shrugged and slipped into a deeper state of infiltration, getting a sense of how well the coordination was working. Hij, Poll and Yermt, it appeared, had long since finished their collaborative project - saving, by the most conservative estimate, an hour and a half of work each. Others showed similar progress. That was impressive efficiency, right in line with what he remembered from his study of battle coordination or battle meditation. Not bad for a very small number of people - and for a mentalist who hadn't attempted battle meditation in over a year.

In the end, he made it to just over an hour and a half before the link slipped. Rather than rebuild it, he let it alone and spent a long minute massaging his temples and talking to himself.