She struggles! Holding her is going to take a lot of focus.

The other functional jedi decides that while he is maybe a bit screwed, a good time to attempt to stab Occlus is right now when she's distracted. If nothing else he can keep the master alive until the other recovers entirely. Stab attempt!

It doesn't take a whole lot of focus to shove him away with an undirected burst of energy. Go away, she'll get back to you once your master is dead.

Occlus advances on the master, saber drawn. Is she stuck enough that Occlus can just strike her head off and have done?

Nope, she dramatically pushes Occlus back at the last moment. Or - no, she gets help.

Oh look, the other jedi master is up again. Hi, other jedi master.

Sigh. She should have just gone to rescue the incompetent troopers. Time to stop playing, then.

Occlus relaxes the barriers in her mind keeping the ghosts confined, and two ethereal figures coalesce to either side of her. One takes over the job of holding Speedy, and the other applies a similar technique to Newly Awake. Her own focus freed, Occlus proceeds to demonstrate just who, exactly, is the Juyo master around here. Her saber is everywhere at once, flicking left and down and right and left and high wherever she finds an opening.

Newly Awake is much stronger in the Force than he appears, and can hold off the ghost well enough to be able to move - he stays entirely on the defensive, but he doesn't immediately die.

Speedy is not so powerful, and without the ability to move, her speed isn't much help. She dies.

The only jedi not being attacked by the sith lord surveys the situation, then runs to the nearest carry-sized stunned jedi to carry off because it is time to get the fuck out.

With Speedy dead, the ghost holding her switches its attention to the Jedi attempting to flee. Lightning blast!

Occlus manifests a third ghost, then a fourth. Both turn to the task of slowing and debilitating Occlus's opponent, while she presses the attack.

Down goes the jedi attempting to flee.

Newly Awake despairs of being able to flee, himself, though he would dearly like to. He accepts his imminent death with grace, his only regrets being the people he was not able to save. ... But maybe he can bring that number up by one. Anything he says to Occlus will be a complete waste of breath, but her apprentice is not so resolute.

"The dark side, will, twist you," he calls, struggling to keep up his strength against three ghosts and a sith lord and failing slowly. "Taint you. You won't even notice when it happens, the jedi will -"

And then his strength gives out, and he dies without further fanfare.

.... Nariveth makes a complicated face and wants very badly to not be in the middle of a warzone right now. She stays right where she is, however.

(She wishes she could have talked to him properly. Dark side? There's a dark side? What does that even mean?)

After he falls, Occlus takes a deep breath and focus inwards for a moment. These ghosts are hers and they will do as she says and she will put them away now. One by one, they wink out. She smiles. It's so refreshing to be listened to, inside her own head.

Now, are there any Jedi who survived her psychic pulse and need to be finished off lying around here?

Yep.

One is crawling away. One is pretending to be dead. One is muttering information to a comlink, whisper soft; intel on Occlus. A warning, to other jedi. Stay away, she is powerful and has at least four Force ghosts, she killed two masters.

It's not very polite, talking about someone behind their back. Especially when they're standing right here, now have a saber through the chest for your trouble. And she'll crush the comlink to dust. Crawler gets a similar treatment. The one pretending to be dead gets zapped until he's no longer pretending.

Now back to where her apprentice is standing. "The lesson today is that when the going gets tough, cheat."

Nariveth swallows a lump in her throat, and nods.

"The - what were those, things? The things with you?"

"They are called Force ghosts. When a powerful Force user dies, they can leave something like an impression of themselves on the area. This impression has the same capacity to channel the Force and retains the knowledge and memories of the one who left it. They are almost always but not exclusively Sith, something in the Jedi philosophy makes them less likely to leave behind ghosts. You find them most often in tombs or battlefields, places of death. I have bound several to me, and can make use of their power as though it were my own, and as you saw today, even summon them to act semi-independently."

Nod. ... Slightly stiff nod. She's holding together very well, for a girl whose mind is about 60% internal screaming, but she's not exactly okay.

"If you are going to have a breakdown, it would be helpful if you could wait until we get back on the tram." Occlus heads in that direction.

"I am very good at only having breakdowns in convenient locations," she says, a touch mechanically. She follows Occlus.

And here is the tram!

"If it would help you to talk through things, I can listen."

"I," she begins, and her voice cracks. She shuts her eyes and shakes her head. "Need to sort through my head before I can possibly talk to anyone else about what's going on in it."

Deep breath. Remarkable display of self control as she composes herself.

"You said the Force ghosts are impressions, but how complete impressions are they? Can they change, grow?"

"No, they are stagnant, usually focused on something that was happening at the time of their death. I met one that was convinced anyone who entered his tomb was his apprentice, trying to poison him, even though both had been dead for centuries."

"So, they're not people?"

"In the sense which I assume you're getting at, no."

Nod. She mentally subtracts four from the number of people Occlus casually tortures, and then shuts down that part of her brain again because aaa no not here.

"The, jedi mentioned 'the dark side'? What did he mean?"

"To those with limited vision, and I include both Jedi and Sith in this category, the Force is composed of two parts, light and dark. The "light side" invokes acts of compassion and selflessness. The "dark side" is destruction and selfishness. The Jedi draw power from the light side, the Sith from the dark. As I see it, there is only one Force, the difference is the ends to which it is put, and the method by which one calls on its power."

This philosophy makes more sense to her than stark good and evil. But then, she does recall how using lightning feels, so maybe it's not entirely crazy. She'll have to analyze that, when she has her freak out.

"Can using certain Force powers affect your emotional state?"