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The Preserve - Saturday

Kaidan still had misgivings about this whole sparring thing, but he'd agreed and there was no real good way to wriggle out of it. He had a half-hope that Kanan wouldn't show, but - he knew better. So Kaidan had thrown on his guard and some loose clothing, loaded some protective gear into a duffel and headed to the preserve.

A teal deer wandered by, incurious about the human and his bag of stuff. Kaidan snapped a picture of it and texted it to Kanan. "Aw look, it matches your eyes."

Then, to burn off nerves, he began doing a warm up set of stretches.

[OOC: expecting 1, open to others if you have reason to wander by. Kanan's thread to be chrono last.]

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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."

"The housing is made to take damage, since it was built specifically for lightsaber training," Kanan replied. "I deflected one of its own bolts back up the barrel it shot it from. Sent it spitting sparks and spinning in a circle, but I'm mostly lucky the damn thing didn't explode, for once."

He shrugged.

"I'll tinker with it a little myself first. It'll give me something to do at work tomorrow. But you'll probably be seeing it anyway." He paused and glanced at the bamboo. And then back at Kaidan. "And I can run through forms with that, but if I'm not going up against an opponent, I might as well pull out my lightsaber. I've been yelled at enough for training with broom handles and kitchen tools on this damn island I almost feel ashamed not to."

He was only mostly joking.

"And there's a weight to the lightsaber that I have to account for that wouldn't be an issue with the bamboo," he added, a little more helpfully. "If you're going for a more accurate idea of how I move with it."

"Didn't know you'd brought it," Kaidan shrugged. Finding a convenient oak tree, he wiped a spot on the ground free of debris and sat, leaning against it. "By all means, bust out your yawner."

"It's never far from where I'm at," Kanan explained, reaching for a piece of what looked almost to be scrap metal on his belt, and then crouching to dig the other half out of the bag he'd brought his gear in. "In case I end up needing it."

Or in case he needed to cut and run.

One of those.

He lifted both pieces, one in either hand, and screwed them together, then ignited the blade.

"Is there a button you push, or do you make it light up with your mind?" Kaidan asked, watching it come to life.

Kanan smiled faintly and turned the hilt around so that Kaidan could see it.

"A button, there," he explained, pointing. "And turning that knob adjusts the length of the blade."

Because he'd been a shorty when he'd built it, and hadn't given up on the possibility of getting taller. Which had been good, because he sure had ended up doing just that.

"But only Force-sensitive people can make them work, do I have that right? If I picked it up and pushed the button.. what happens?" he asked, tilting his head back against the trunk.

"If you picked it up and pushed the button, you'd turn on the lightsaber," Kanan replied. "Only Force-sensitive people can build them. But once it's made, it's still a piece of hardware."

He shut the blade off and held the hilt out to Kaidan.

Kaidan arched a brow and took the hilt. It weighed more than he expected, but less than he imagined. Aiming the about-to-be-burning end away from anything it could cut, he pushed the button and ignited it. He gave it a couple seconds, absorbing the feel of it, and then pushed the button again to turn it off. "I don't know how your hands don't go numb from that," he said, handing it back.

"What, the hum?" Kanan smirked faintly, and then shook his head, taking back his weapon. "That's nothing. If you'd actually tried to move it around, it probably would have resisted you."

Yes. The blade would have. They often had ideas of their own.

"Yes, the hum," Kaidan agreed, "And I wouldn't. I don't mess around with plasma unless it's very quickly moving in a direction away from me."

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