fandomtownies | The Preserve

Kaidan nodded, "Which is why my follow up would be biotics." He smiled grimly, "Assuming I didn't have a gun. If I did, you'd be on the defensive pretty much immediately. I assume lightsabers block bullets as well as blaster bolts?"

He thought of something, "Does the sword shut off if it loses contact with your hand?"

Tilting his head a little, he examined the sword and asked another question, "Why would you go for the hip? Three inches in height, you'd split me in half."

"The sword shuts off," Kanan confirmed. "And I've never tried to block a bullet with it, but I suspect it would simply reduce it to slag. You're welcome to shoot at me to test that theory."

He wasn't holding his breath on that front. He had a hard enough time asking people to throw pebbles at him, here.

There was another moment, while that last question registered. And then he looked faintly horrified.

"The aim is to incapacitate," he said, actively taken aback. "I can kill a person. I have killed with it. But if I can take a leg instead of a life, I damn well will."

"You're going to have to show me a Force shield before I start flinging bullets at you," Kaidan pointed out, "Show me you can block it if it gets past the sword."

Kaidan would have zero problems throwing pebbles. That would be easier than throwing punches.

He shot Kanan a very lopsided smile, "Remember when I said that everything I do is lethal? I wasn't kidding. If I took a leg, that person would be alive on the ground within my defensive sphere. That's not acceptable."

"I've I've taken a leg instead of a life, it's because I'm damn certain I have control enough of the situation to survive doing so." Kanan pulled in a breath, and then shrugged. He wouldn't fault anybody for making damn sure his opponent was down, even though it had very nearly gotten ugly on Tuesday for what was likely the same reason. "You find something for me to shield, and I'll show you how that works. I don't think there's much that can be said by either of us to change one any opinions on killing in that situation. I was taught a defensive lightsaber form for a reason."

Kaidan nodded, "If I'm fighting, I'm defending something. Anything within my defensive sphere is getting put down in a manner it won't get up from, because I can't afford for it to get past me, or to bring me down and give line of sight to whatever it is I'm guarding."

He nodded at a nearby tree, "Can you put a meter by meter shield in front of that?"

Kanan shrugged and tossed the bamboo stick to the side.

"Where? Ground level?"

Easy enough.

"Sure, that works. Higher up would be better, but my aim's pretty good. Will you know if it weakens or breaks?" Kaidan asked.

"It'll break when I let it go," Kanan replied. "I'll know if I weaken."

He held up his hands toward the tree and reached into the Force.

"You can aim higher if you want."

He was pretty much just covering the trunk for good measure.

Was he doing this? He was. He took a breath, then another, and then he triggered his implants. His Omni sprang to glowing orange life on his left arm. His voice, when he began to speak, was devoid of emotion. "We'll start with Cryoblast. Don't blame me, I didn't name these. On an unprotected person, it will freeze them solid and shatter them in 1.8 seconds. On an armored target, it will weaken the armor and slow them down. Multiple hits will freeze them solid. While it's active, any other biotic ability that hits the target, as well as plasma bolts or bullets, will cause a detonation. My recharge speed is approximately 4 seconds. I usually go with six, just to be sure."

With that, he brought his left hand up, aimed at the tree, and triggered his implants.

There was no physical projectile. There was nothing but the sound of water vapor in the air freezing along the shield Kanan was holding up.

From Kaidan, there was no emotion. Not even static. There's a void where there should be a person.

Every four seconds, he fired another blast, so Kanan could see what he meant by 'detonation'. Ice turned into jagged shrapnel with a sound almost like an implosive pop. It didn't fly all that far, but the speed it was going, it didn't really have to. After about four, he stopped.

"What I'm doing is firing masses of super-cooled subatomic particles that snap-freeze on the target."

"It's a hell of a trick," Kanan said, watching the vapor in the air form along an invisible barrier. "I can feel it through the Force, another energy at odds with what I'm holding in front of the tree. And you say it'll cause a detonation if it interacts with other biotic abilities?"

Kaidan nodded. He gauged the distance far enough. "This is what happens when Reave hits Cryo."

He didn't move or gesture. For this, he didn't have to. All he needed was line of sight.

The ice detonated with enough force to send a shockwave through the air.

"If there wasn't a barrier in front of it, that tree would be kindling."

Kanan could feel the shockwave physically, which was good, because with his eyes closed and a second hand coming up to join the first, he sure as hell wasn't seeing what had just happened, there.

"I believe it," he replied, opening his eyes again. "Quite the kick that has, there."

Not so much that he couldn't handle it, but enough that he'd had to buckle down and brace for it, anyway.

"Reave is a thief. It steals power from kinetic barriers, armor, and it'll start to drain a person's life once it gets through. When it hits a person, they stagger. Doesn't matter how armored they are, Reave will stagger them. I assume the Force shield is going to act like a biotic Barrier, though it probably won't detonate on contact. I'm only going to hit it once to start. If you feel at all weakened, tell me. Reave is one of the few biotic abilities that can outright kill a Krogan in a blood rage. The power stacks, so every hit drains more life out of them. On anything but a Krogan, the general tactic is to hit once with Reave and then go for a headshot."

His voice was still flat and emotionless. Possibly even moreso than before. Again, he stood there and looked at the tree, and triggered his implants. He didn't need to see it to know it hit, he could feel the glow of the return.

And Kanan felt that, too, once again knuckling down to brace himself from the pull of Reave, which seemed to tug and rip at the shield he was trying to maintain.

"That... that one has bite," he said, un-clenching his grit teeth. "I can hold against it, but I need to put more in. Need to fortify. It's taking from the Force, not from me, but that's still... it's work."

"Do you want me to hit it again?" Kaidan asked, head tilting slightly.

Kanan considered that, glanced briefly at Kaidan, and then nodded.

"Hit it again? I'll tell you when it's getting too hard to hold."

"Remember that you have six seconds between hits. Once it's triggered, I can't call it back, but I can stop it instantly before that," Kaidan reminded him.

And then he just began hitting the shield with Reave, every six seconds.

"This is the thing that makes me an aberration. It's something only Adepts can do, and I'm not one. Not yet, anyway. Biotic powers are supposed to be finite, you have what you have, and you do what you can do with it. Mine keep growing. Whether it's a genetic anomaly, or whether it's because I was just really motivated the first time John ..went missing, nobody knows. I sent myself into situations where all I did was hammer things with biotics all day long. Most human biotics don't recharge this fast, and they eventually get tired. I..don't."

"I'll tell you one shot before I -- need to let this drop," Kanan said, voice halting partway as he braced himself, and then re-centering himself again for the next one. "It helps that -- that you have to pause to recharge. Gives -- me a moment to ready myself too."

He pulled in a deep breath, dug his heels in, and closed his eyes tight shut.

"Consider this last call. I'm near done."

Kaidan took a breath, and powered down. He cracked his neck to each side. In a voice far more normal, he said, "The recharge would help you only if it were a situation like now, where I'm sitting here throwing one thing at you. Normally, I'd be detonating every other hit. Reave doesn't stop just because it detonates. I'd also be shooting at you. This is also me, starting from nothing. If it were actual combat, I'd be angry, scared, whatever - and I'd be using it."

"Shooting," Kaidan added, remembering he hadn't explained it, "Biotics have a gift for accuracy. We hit what we aim for, almost always. We are trained for headshots. A biotic with a handgun and a decent supply of thermal clips can do catastrophic damage on a combat field."

"Remind me to head to the range with my blaster sometime," Kanan said, pulling in a breath and just kind of slumping forward, knees bent, hands on those knees the moment he let his shield fall. "If there's one thing I'm confident in my ability to do, it's shoot."

He was going to wear that damn blaster on his hip for the rest of his life, after all.

"Good plan," Kaidan said, watching Kanan, "Did that pull anything from you, or are you just tired from holding the shield?"

"Holding the shield," Kanan replied after a moment of considering it. "I can do a hell of a lot with it, but sustaining a shield like that, for that long, isn't something I've had to do very much of."

He had Skelly to thank for the last time.

"It's worth working on, I know that, but it's something I really only get an opportunity to train under certain circumstances."

"If we're sparring and I'm going full out, you're going to want it up at all times, or you're going to want to be able to get it up immediately."

He paused, then put his face in his palm and muttered something about Sparkle.

Then he continued, "Cryo takes a second to get to its target. Reave is instantaneous. Overload won't affect you, but if you have anything containing a battery and a chip, it'll affect that and blow it up. I likely wouldn't be throwing that at you, but at things on the ground around you."

He made a face, "You're going to have to show me more sword work. This'll go easier if I can match it to things you already know. Not that you don't know how to fight, but you don't know how to fight like I do, and bar brawling moves.. it wouldn't be a fair fight right now."

"I suppose it wouldn't," Kanan replied, straightening up and glancing over at the bamboo again. "I managed to slag part of my training remote, or I'd just let you watch me against an opponent I can program to push my upper limits."

"Slagged it?" Kaidan frowned, "Is it just the housing or the electronics? Because you kind of know someone who owns an electronics repair shop."

He also glanced at the bamboo, "Could you run through forms with that, without an opponent? It might help me to see them."

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