DarthAnt66
It felt great to sweat again. The outdoor sparring session wasn't the only exercise Jaina had performed since returning to the secret base at Shedu Maad-since she'd limped back after failing to kill Caedus at Nickel One. But today was the first time Cilghal had allowed her to really let go-to prove to Luke and everyone else that she was ready to attack again.
Jaina sprang at Zekk, doubling him over with a powerful thrust kick to the gut, then dropped to her haunches-and realized why when an electrostaff came swinging through where her neck had been a split second earlier. She immediately spun into a squatting leg-wheel, hooking her heel behind a furry stump of a leg and sweeping it forward.
Lowbacca roared in surprise and tried to transfer his balance to his other leg, but Jaina was already coming up on his flank, driving her shoulder into him and sending him tumbling. The electrostaff came down across Zekk's shoulder, emitting a sharp crackle as it discharged its immobilizing shock. Jaina slapped the flexible "blade" of her own staff across Lowbacca's back, then heard Jag rushing in behind her and sent him flying with a back kick to the belly.
Tesar was on her like a rancor, driving her back with a flurry of scaly-footed kicks and cane strikes, his dark Barabel eyes bulging with the joy of the fight. Jaina parried a head strike, blocked a gut kick by driving an elbow into his instep, then hook-trapped a blazing-fast head slap and hung off his enormous arm as she swung up, wrapping her legs around his waist and shocking him three times in the ribs before his reptilian neural system registered the incapacitating jolts and finally dropped him to the grass in a heap of quivering scales.
Jaina rolled over her shoulder and came up ready to face her last unzapped opponent, but Jag was still sitting on the far side of the courtyard. He was trying to catch the wind that had been knocked out of him and rubbing a red welt where he had apparently struck his forearm with his own electrostaff.
"You didn't have to shock yourself," Jaina teased. She deactivated her electrostaff. "You could have just said stop."
Jag didn't smile, but a twinkle did come to his durasteel gaze. "I'm not so sure," he said. "You had that wild look in your eye again."
Jaina did not need to ask what look. She knew the one he meant; it was the one she had learned in Keldabe, when Beviin taught her the art of losing herself to the fight. She looked around at her four opponents, who were all still resting on the grass, trying to catch their breath and let their neural systems recover from the jolts they had received.
"You four want to go again?" She looked around the courtyard perimeter, where her parents, uncle, and several Masters stood watching the workout session. Behind them loomed one of the amber-stained mine buildings the Jedi were now calling home, with the billowing crowns of a few dozen kolg trees showing above the structure's corrugated roof. "Maybe we could get Master Durron to help out."
If that didn't prove to them that she was ready to go after Caedus again, nothing would.
Jaina sprang at Zekk, doubling him over with a powerful thrust kick to the gut, then dropped to her haunches-and realized why when an electrostaff came swinging through where her neck had been a split second earlier. She immediately spun into a squatting leg-wheel, hooking her heel behind a furry stump of a leg and sweeping it forward.
Lowbacca roared in surprise and tried to transfer his balance to his other leg, but Jaina was already coming up on his flank, driving her shoulder into him and sending him tumbling. The electrostaff came down across Zekk's shoulder, emitting a sharp crackle as it discharged its immobilizing shock. Jaina slapped the flexible "blade" of her own staff across Lowbacca's back, then heard Jag rushing in behind her and sent him flying with a back kick to the belly.
Tesar was on her like a rancor, driving her back with a flurry of scaly-footed kicks and cane strikes, his dark Barabel eyes bulging with the joy of the fight. Jaina parried a head strike, blocked a gut kick by driving an elbow into his instep, then hook-trapped a blazing-fast head slap and hung off his enormous arm as she swung up, wrapping her legs around his waist and shocking him three times in the ribs before his reptilian neural system registered the incapacitating jolts and finally dropped him to the grass in a heap of quivering scales.
Jaina rolled over her shoulder and came up ready to face her last unzapped opponent, but Jag was still sitting on the far side of the courtyard. He was trying to catch the wind that had been knocked out of him and rubbing a red welt where he had apparently struck his forearm with his own electrostaff.
"You didn't have to shock yourself," Jaina teased. She deactivated her electrostaff. "You could have just said stop."
Jag didn't smile, but a twinkle did come to his durasteel gaze. "I'm not so sure," he said. "You had that wild look in your eye again."
Jaina did not need to ask what look. She knew the one he meant; it was the one she had learned in Keldabe, when Beviin taught her the art of losing herself to the fight. She looked around at her four opponents, who were all still resting on the grass, trying to catch their breath and let their neural systems recover from the jolts they had received.
"You four want to go again?" She looked around the courtyard perimeter, where her parents, uncle, and several Masters stood watching the workout session. Behind them loomed one of the amber-stained mine buildings the Jedi were now calling home, with the billowing crowns of a few dozen kolg trees showing above the structure's corrugated roof. "Maybe we could get Master Durron to help out."
If that didn't prove to them that she was ready to go after Caedus again, nothing would.
