In the Beginning (Shilandra)

[Zereth Lancer]

The spot next to her empty when, Shilandra woke up. Zereth had woken early, showered, and gathered his equipment, and headed down to the training grounds to prepare for the training session he would begin soon.

On the pillow beside Shilandra was a sealed envelope with a note tucked away inside it. It simply asked for Shilandra to come down to the training vault, also enclosed was instructions as to which of the private training rooms that branched off from the main chamber was Zereth's.

In the private chamber; Zereth stood, leaning against one of the four pillar, that kept the roof from crashing down, and looking around the room, at all the various weapons that lined the walls. They were all trophies, things he won through competitions and duels. Some where more decorative pieces, while others bore the scars of battle. Zereth wasn't going to be teaching weapon skills today, he was going to teach his new apprentice how to use the force in all its basic forms. Advance training would come later, not before.

[Shilandra Rae]

She sat quietly in bed and put the note back on the pillow. With a stretch she pulled herself up and prepared herself. Her woman's intuition left her with the distinct feeling that today was going to be VERY long.

Her lips curled into their customary grin, and she sauntered out of her room and made her way to the Training Vault.

She found her way to his private chamber with little trouble and stood in the entranceway, letting her eyes wander around the walls of the room, nifty. She let her eyes come to rest on her 'master,' and let out a slight pur.

"Well, here I am."

[Zereth Lancer]

"Please, come hither," Zereth said, mixing business with pleasure for the moment, "Tell me, Shilandra, how much do you know about the force?" It was the most basic of questions, but it was a necessary one when it came to training one's apprentice. It had happened once to Zereth that one of his apprentices had no idea what the force was or what it entitled and his training was going much slower due to it. Zereth blamed himself for it, not his apprentice. From that day on he was always sure to ask the necessary question and stop being a fool and assuming people knew things.

[Shilandra Rae]

"The Force?" She puzzled for a moment. scratching her chin as she walked over to Zereth. "I know it seems to get a lot of people in trouble with the Empire - and from what little I've heard, it's supposed to be VERY powerful." She smiled coyly as she brushed up against him.

"It's what you use, isn't it?" She half purred, she'd been witness first hand of his power, and now it all made a lot more sense. So - this is the power he had promised.

[Zereth Lancer]

"Yes, it is what I use, and you have used it several times yourself, usually on accident. The force has two sides to it, the lightside and the darkside. I, and my colleagues, use the darkside because it is stronger, more powerful, and far more deadly then the lightside; which is used by a group of ninnies called the Jedi. To channel the force and its darkside energy one must center on the dark. I want you to think about things that make you angry, sad, and or bitter. It is emotion and passion that draws and generates the darksider of the force."

[Shilandra Rae]

"Angry and sad? Bitter?" She scratched her chin thoughtfully, in truth she didn't get these emotions all that often - she enjoyed what she did so much that not much had bothered her til this point, not much except...

That night in the alley, the night she'd met this man, Zereth Lancer. Her mind wandered back to that night, and to the other man she had encountered. Her lips tensed and she growled lowly under her breath, that infuriating, annoying man. That man who would not allow her to have her fun, that kept her from her game. She simply couldn't stand not getting her way, she hated it. She hated him.

Her anger rose and she stomped a foot angrily at the very thought of that poofy little twit and his stupid attitude, his ridiculous outfit, and worst of all his voice. That voice that would always be ingrained on her mind - a voice that told her 'no.'

With that she let out a fierce scream of anger - feeling the very air around her electrify, it's as if the room had suddenly become alive, and awoken to her.

[Zereth Lancer]

Zereth watched all this with a blank face, but inside he was smiling at the power and potential he was seeing play out before him. "Yes, just like that Shilandra. Anger is the greatest link to the power of the force. Feed it, embrace it, let it fill you, let it fuel you. Yes, you are doing a marvelous job. Now I want you to use that power, that force energy, to accomplish something that no mere mortal could ever do," Zereth said as he dug his hand into his pocket and pulled out a small metal sphere. He held it out on his palm and showed it to Shilandra, "I want you to use the force to will this to float in the air," He noticed the look on her face, "It will make greater sense when you learn to do it. I want you to imagine this sphere in your mind. Picture it in the finest detail and hold that image in your mind. Now, I want you to picture a hand, a great strong powerful hand that reaches down and picks the sphere up and raises it into the air. Do this and the both the sphere in your mind, and the one in my hand, shall rise up into the air. Try it..."

[Shilandra Rae]

Hands and spheres? This all seemed so silly really - but he'd been right so far, who was she to argue with success? She did as he had said to, and focused on the sphere, seeing it in her mind, even the smallest detail. Got that so far - now... hand... hand... ah there we go.

She could see the form of a hand now, see it pick the ball up and lift it from Zereth's palm - and it did. Her eyes widened a bit surprised, but kept her focus, the ball floated above his palm and she grinned - was he doing this? No... no this was all her. How marvelous - how absolutely wonderful. She grinned a bit wider and moved it higher above his hand.

She narrowed her eyes and focused on it, picturing the hand crushing the metal sphere, however nothing seemed to happen. She pursed her lips, and glowered - why wasn't that working?

[Zereth Lancer]

While she was concentrating on the sphere, Zereth used the distraction to enter Shilandra's mind. He watched the event through her eyes and listened to her thoughts as she lifted the sphere. His mental probe smiled as she successfuly grasped the concept and levitated the sphere.

He frowned as a new thought entered Shilandra's mind. She was trying to crush the sphere now, but she was doing it all wrong. Zereth retreated from her mind and returned to his own body, "Crushing the sphere will not work like you might think. Your connection to the force is not strong enough for you to apply the kind of pressure needed to crush this sphere, the reason being that this sphere is solid durasteel and even I would have a hard time displacing the metal enough to make a dent in it. A hollow target is much easier to crush. We will move on to that subject very soon, but for now we will continue on the subject of levitation," Zereth withdrew his hand and slipped the sphere into a pocket. When his hand returned it was holding a much larger sphere, one nearly the size of a closed fist, "Now I want you to repeat the same thing on this larger and heavier sphere. You can use the same concept of image projection to levitate it as you did with the previous sphere. Remember that size does not matter when it comes to the realm of the mind. Size only effects the physical. Don't think about the size or weight increase, but think of it as being as light as the previous sphere. Try it."

[Shilandra Rae]

She nodded with a smile. "Got it, it's just like the other one. Just like it..." She half mumbled, trying to focus on that concept. It was bigger... but she had to ignore that, it was the same as the last one. Small and light and easy to manipulate.

She narrowed her eyes slightly and focused in on the object before her. She let the hand appear once more in her mind and pick the object up from his hand. Slowly and a bit shakily at first it began to lift into the air, gradually smoothing out in it's actions and floating gently, just as the previous one had. She smiled darkly at her own success, feeling MOST pleased with herself.

[Zereth Lancer]

And then a sharp pain peirced her mind like a knife. The sheer power behind the mental attack knocked her off balance and caused her to topple to the floor. As much as Zereth hated to hurt her so, he would have to act as a master first and a lover second.

"Can that pride," He said simply, "Your feelings of success cause you to loose concentration as your mind goes off on that rabbit trail. Gloating in the midst of a battle can cost you the battle. You must empty your mind of distractions and concentrate on the task at hand. Only through this means will you achieve victory, anything else will cost your blood. Do you understand?"